


A Tale of Spring

by WackyGoofball



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: ... I will probably add more tags later because Wacky loves tags, ... or not?, Alternate Universe - Post-Canon, Angst and Feels, Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon Compliant, Declarations Of Love, F/M, Falling In Love, Feels, Fluff and Angst, Hurt/Comfort, JB Week, Love, Love Confessions, Minor Character Death, Post-War, Romance, jb appreciation week 2017, jb family jewels, that would be too spoilery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-01
Updated: 2018-04-08
Packaged: 2019-01-07 15:46:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 74,080
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12235902
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WackyGoofball/pseuds/WackyGoofball
Summary: Jaime and Brienne encounter an uncertain future, following the Long Night.They have to make some life-changing decisions, come to terms with their old and new demons, and wrestle with those things left unspoken for so very long.They now live the Dream of Spring, whatever dreams that spring may hold is history, a tale yet to be told.





	1. Silver

**Author's Note:**

  * For [december13](https://archiveofourown.org/users/december13/gifts).



> Hello everyone, thanks for looking into this story. For this JB Appreciation Week, I decided to explore the future, the great (end) game, and so that fic idea was created. I do not really intend this to be an accurate *analysis* of what I think will happen after the Long Night is over, but is rather something I toyed with inside my head when it comes to headcanons for a long time. Though I don't find it *too* farfetched. 
> 
> I gift this to because december is amazing, and kind, and encouraging (and innocent) and deserves more fic than I can write.
> 
> Warnings go as always: All mistakes are mine, because there is no beta. I am still no native, and will seemingly never be. Sucks. 
> 
> I hope you will enjoy this story. 
> 
> Much JB Love!!! ♥♥♥

Smoke.

Tendrils stretching into a colorless sky, gaining shape, then losing it again.

Lines blurring out until they fade into a mass of gray, connecting the realm of the earth with that of the sky, pulling together what once was apart.

The air is heavy with the smell of ashes, burned cloth, oil, the coppery, wet scent of blood crystallized on mud, stone, and snow.

Jaime can feel the cold of the small ice particles seeping through his clothes, but his blood is still singing in hot tunes from battle, the battle against death itself, for life itself, to the point that he registers the cold, but doesn’t feel as though it reaches him.

The dead are cold, but the ones with warm blood are alive.

And they are alive.

They won.

 _Who could have guessed_?

“Oh, there you are.”

Jaime turns around to see Brienne hobbling closer, leaving uneven footsteps on the gray snow. Her leg took considerable damage in the battle when one of the White Walkers swung his lance against her knee with a crack that echoed almost deafeningly loud in Jaime’s ears. For a moment, he feared that beast would take off her limb with a single strike of the icy scythe, though Brienne, even in that moment of sheer agony, managed to chop that wicked creature’s head off before crashing to the cold ground as the dead beast turned to snow.

When in the sickbay, after Jaime practically dragged her there, the young Maester kept muttering words that echoed about as loudly inside Jaime’s head as had the moment the White Walker delivered the blow to Brienne, that she may never get rid of the limp again, that it is something permanent, may get worse, far worse.

_Though, to be fair, the man doesn’t know Brienne’s stubbornness. It is yet to be determined who is going to win that battle – and Lord Selwyn’s daughter managed to defeat death itself, so that limp hardly stands a chance._

At least that is the comforting thought Jaime keeps to himself when he sees her struggling with the still paining leg. It keeps the cold from spreading deep in his chest, even while sitting by the fireplace, warmth seeping right into him.  

To say that it was a battle for life itself may well be understatement, because an entire world depended on their victory.

It was living or dying.

There was no middle ground.

And yet, somehow, they managed to stand on melting snow, coated in mud and blood, wounded, broken, dead, only few alive – compared to how many stood before the battle ensued, but victor nonetheless, because the Others faded back to the ice that they were born from by the end of the day, the end of the Long Night.

It was a battle marked by losses, _not just injured legs_. They are still counting bodies, remembering their faces, their names, before they are to disappear in fire and smoke, fly to the sky to hang as silvery clouds above their heads for likely many years still to come. They will probably count for a couple more days, piling them up and burning them on pyres, so not to take chances. One can never know if there aren’t some White Walkers left far beyond the Wall, deep within ice and snow, _well, the remains of it anyway_.

That will not just take days, but years, centuries, even, to rebuild something that was completely annihilated, swallowed by ice, covered in snow that shines like silver now, unmoving, still, almost peaceful.

“I thought that young Maester told you that you weren’t supposed to walk around that much,” Jaime says with a grimace, studying his tall companion, who only ever scowls at him in return.

“Actually, I am pretty sure he told you to limit movement as much as you can for a good while,” he adds, keeping his tone lighter than his thoughts permit.

Jaime can feel jolts of pain running right through his knee just seeing her limp.

_As though the pain was mine. Though, perhaps, it actually is._

“And you are under an illusion if you believe that I’ll listen to what that man has to say about the matter. If I spend much more time in bed, I will go _insane_ , and then I rather take up with the pain and the limping than wreak havoc,” Brienne replies, lifting her chin a little higher, though it does little to surprise Jaime. He has never known her in any other way.

“We had enough of that anyway,” she grunts.

“Apologies,” he chuckles softly. “I tend to forget sometimes that you like to abandon reason when it comes to those matters.”

Brienne stops, putting her weight on her good leg, looking around, before focusing her attention back on the man before her. To say that she looks as though she only barely escaped death is likely a statement that could not ring any truer. There are still healing cuts, one particular deep ridge to the side of her cheek that will surely leave a scar visible till the day she dies, and bruises painting her almost unnaturally colorful, with nothing but white and silver surrounding them.

“And what are you doing here anyway? Sitting in the snow? I can’t imagine that to be serving your health either,” Brienne comments, wrinkling her nose.

Jaime was surprised that he took _considerable_ little damage. Some deep cuts, the arms taking most of the brunt, one particular nasty one that bled to the point that he was seeing black by the edges during the fight, the Maester said that he managed to break some bones of the arm without a hand, though Jaime gave little on that, scrapes everywhere, bruises, but in sum, Jaime knows he should have been much worse off, considering that he was one of the few who fought that battle one-handedly.

_I thought I was going to be one of the bodies to be counted, one of the first, actually, and yet, here I am to count._

Jaime lets out a sigh, allowing his eyes drift to the gray sky for a moment or two, before he replies quietly, “I just needed some time to myself.”

Brienne blinks, her lips curling into an uncertain grimace. “Oh, I can also leave again, I didn’t mean to…”

He interrupts her before Brienne can speak herself into a nervous frenzy, “No, no, it’s alright. I suppose it might be for the best if I get a little distracted from my own brooding.”

“I can also go back…,” she means to offer, but Jaime gives her a stern look in turn, which soon ebbs into a grin. “What did I just say, wench?”

She lets out a small huff, Jaime lets out a small laugh in turn. Some things don’t seem to change even with the whole world at a disarray of uncertain outcomes, unknown futures, which are all but mist flitting across the horizon without shape or destination.

People change, landscapes transform, the world keeps turning, shifting its form, shedding its skin, but somehow, what lies between people is what stays in shape at times, even though it bears no visible appearance. The way he talks to Brienne, the way she responds to him, the way they look at one another, those are one of the few constants Jaime found in this world, and still finds himself holding on to in this new world sleeping beneath a silver sky without true shape yet.

Brienne motions closer until she is next to him, lowering herself down on the snow slowly, careful not to put additional strain on her bad leg. Jaime wants to help her out of reflex, but the last time he tried to steady Brienne on the way to her chamber, the wench glowered at him as though she wanted to lynch him right in the hallway for making the attempt.

_The woman is a stubborn creature, there is no way of denying it – and this is, too, one of those things that won’t ever change._

Jaime is _most_ certain of it, and perhaps a little glad, too.

“So? Any major epiphanies achieved while pondering here in the snow?” Brienne asks, her eyes drifting up to the colorless sky, letting out a shaky breath creating white clouds around her mouth.

“ _Epiphanies_? Woman, we just survived the war against the literal dead. I think epiphanies are far out of our reach at this point of time,” Jaime chuckles.

 _Though isn’t that what I was chasing when I sat down here_?

“So, all brooding out in the cold for nothing?” she questions with a soft grin tugging at her lips. “If I were you, I’d be rather disappointed.”

“I wouldn’t necessarily say so, no.”

Brienne pulls her good leg further up to rest her arm upon it. “So there was a silver lining after all?”

“I can’t say for certain just yet,” Jaime replies with a smirk, but then turns his gaze towards the sky more pensively – because there is no silver lining for certain, yet anyway. “It’s simply odd that it only occurred to me this morning that we… well, that we have a future now.”

 _Future_.

That word still feels unfamiliar on his tongue.

Future is suddenly another concept, no longer just a day or two, but… a year, three years, many years perhaps, a whole life still to live.

“An uncertain one,” Brienne says with a grimace. “A _very_ uncertain one.”

“One of the few constants of this new world, true, but… there is a future now, whatever shape it may bear. Just a few days back, I didn’t think that there would be a future for any of us,” Jaime admits. Brienne studies him wordlessly, her big blue eyes searching his glance only ever for a few moments in time, but return anyway, again and again.

“At some point before the battle, I said goodbye to future chances. I was willing to die in the war in the hope to somehow make a difference, but… I was fairly certain that we would not succeed, that _I_ would not,” Jaime goes on, tilting his head upwards. “Or even if I did, I wasn’t really sure I would see the end of it, quite on the contrary.”

Jaime didn’t dare to believe that he would see freshly fallen snow that shines like silver after the battle was won. He was prepared for only ever looking upon snow colored red and black, or at best, two big blue eyes looking down on him.

_In the arms of the woman…_

“I was the same,” Brienne admits, biting her lower lip, chewing on a cut that is still healing from where one of the White Walkers grabbed her with sharp fingernails.

Jaime still considers it one of his proudest achievements that he chopped his head off before that thing turned to dust.

Though the scars will still remain, joining those of the bearpit, those of the battles fought while chasing Sansa, to find her for Catelyn Stark – and for him, and only the Seven will know what scars he doesn’t know about, or will never know about.

Jaime lets out a shaky breath, white mist hovering around his mouth, allowing his eyes to drift back to the sky, filled with a gray mass hanging low over the snowy ground. “It’s odd, isn’t it? To think that… we have won. It still seems like something that will disappear the moment on I close my eyes.”

“You won’t ask me to pinch you now, will you?” Brienne huffs. Jaime shakes his head with a smirk. “Knowing you, you’d just _punch_ me rather than _pinch_ me, though then you would likely feel bad for hurting my arm because you are actually too honorable for that.”

“Which you got injured for being foolishly reckless,” she argues, tilting her head to the side slightly. “And I am saying that to a man who jumped into a bear pit without a weapon.”

“What was I supposed to do?” Jaime insists. “Let that undead thing chop off your head?”

“I would have dodged,” Brienne retorts, puckering her lips.

“ _Right_. As your leg gave up on you, I am sure.”

She turns towards him. “You dodged with your _golden hand_. Who does that?”

“It worked before!” Jaime retorts.

“Against whom?”

“Some Dornishman that tried to ambush us with his friends back when we tried to fetch Myrcella and bring her home… and then another time against a Dothraki soldier we faced on the way back from Highgarden, when I first encountered the Dragon Queen. You could say it’s a tested way of parrying,” Jaime replies with a small grin.

She looks at him for a long moment, then shakes her head, letting out a long sigh. “Which proves my point: This was absolutely, foolishly reckless. He could have taken off your entire arm with just a single blow.”

“If you want to fight me on the matter, you will have to struggle on your own, wench. I won’t have it,” Jaime hisses, resolution pouring from the tip of his tongue. “I did what was necessary so that we survived.”

“That _I_ survived,” Brienne corrects him, sounding almost blaming.

“ _Exactly_ ,” he snaps, which has the woman keep her mouth shut at once, staring at him with her brilliant blue eyes for a moment too long, before Brienne quickly lowers her gaze, betraying her otherwise strong warrior aura, morphing into a shy woman all over.

It dawned on Jaime right on the battlefield. It was the same sensation he felt in his bones back at Harrenhal, the same cold blood rushing through him when he entered Riverrun, not knowing whether he would have to fight Brienne after all. That he just had to act, that there was no other way but to jump, to make a leap, run forward, no other way but to dodge with his golden hand.

_Because without her…_

“… It was reckless anyway,” she concludes stubbornly after a long moment, not daring to look at him. Jaime would likely laugh if he was not sincere right at that moment, if she wasn’t sincere, indicated by her averting her gaze, keeping the truth hidden in those blue orbs away from him.

“Sometimes you have to do reckless things to see something achieved.”

Brienne says nothing at that, but instead goes on to glance at the gray sky, which seems to stand still now.

“… So, do you have any future plans just yet?” Jaime asks after a while, his eyes drifting back to the silver of the present, holding yet no futures and pasts, all but drifting clouds of smoke and ash, because thinking back to almost having lost her make shudders run through him, brings cold blood to where warm blood flooded before. And he can’t have that.

 _Ever again_.

“Not really,” Brienne admits, sucking in a deep breath, white clouds wafting around her mouth. “I… didn’t think too far… didn’t dare to.”

“Then what do you have in mind that is still rather vague?” Jaime asks quietly.

“Going home,” she replies simply. “I suppose that this is… a logical step now. I haven’t been to Tarth in… I couldn’t even tell you the days. A while back, I could have said it down to the hour, but I cannot anymore.”

Brienne looks over the planes of snow, which shine silver in the meager light breaking through the clouds, almost looking like waves after a heavy storm.

“I have run far enough, I believe,” she adds, her voice almost not audible, swallowed by the silver gleaming snow around them.

“You? Running away? Now, _that’d_ be a new concept. You are one to run _into_ a fire, not away from it, however foolish that may be,” Jaime huffs, to which Brienne just rolls her blue eyes at him. “You are the one to talk.”

Jaime rolls his shoulders, wincing at the jolt of pain that it sends through his right arm. When he told her about how he charged a dragon with a spear, Brienne actually smacked him, _pretty hard_ , lecturing Jaime for getting himself into such a trouble, which had him laugh harder than he ever thought he would, thinking about how he could have died that very day, and was willing to do it, to make that violence end, so not to create more spoils of war.

“You know how I mean it.”

“I have… run from the life that awaits me there, that is all I am saying,” Brienne goes on. Jaime knows that she rarely talks about the personal, even less so about what she left behind on Tarth back when she joined Renly, seemingly to keep her past protected and shielded.

However, over time, some of those walls came down right to Jaime’s feet.

“No longer the life of a hedge knight for the Maid of Tarth, you mean,” he jokes.

“Well, no one will manage to take my sword away, without a doubt,” Brienne says with a smile. “The point is rather this, though: Quite another life will await me on Tarth… after what happened.”

She bows her head. Jaime sucks the inside of his cheek into his mouth.

That seems to be yet another pain he feels that is actually not his, even though it feels like it is tearing him apart.

They only ever heard of it when he had already made it to the North after he broke with Cersei to join the war against the dead. When the news echoed through the halls of Winterfell, Jaime thought the world stopped turning for a moment, then two, then three.

The last thing anyone expected was an ambush on Tarth, which cost the lives of many inhabitants, Lord Selwyn Tarth included.

Even less so was it expected to come from Euron Greyjoy.

And what no one really saw coming was that Cersei likely ordered him to do it.

 _Because no one walks away from her_.

Just that Jaime did.

When Brienne just muttered it after having read the message, Jaime didn’t know what to say, let alone think. He just stood there motionless as Brienne excused herself and exited with fast strides, her face stoic, features tight, but her blue eyes filled with a kind of pain that even she could not hide.

The silence in the great hall was absolute. One moment, they were discussing tactics for the upcoming march further North to face the armies of the dead, the next, it occurred to all of them once again, in a sickening way, that the Game of Thrones was still on for some people.

_As though that bloody chair ever mattered to anyone other than those people who believed it to matter so long they sat upon it._

That night, Jaime found himself pacing a lot, wrestling with the guilt that crept around him like tendrils, aiming for the heart with invisible daggers. Because there was no other explanation inside his mind other than that Cersei wanted to punish him for _conspiracy_ , for joining the enemy, for going away when she told him to stay.

And she made Brienne pay the price, her people, her father.

It is a guilt Jaime will shoulder for the rest of his future, he is sure, however short or long it is going to be.

That night, Jaime did the one thing he’s done for most of his life, the one thing he was good at even when he didn’t know how to use the sword with his left, however pointless it may seemed. Because, for once, the cause was good, it was for the right person. He stood vigil outside her door in silence as darkness danced over the roofs. Just to be there, to be there for her in case she wanted to come outside and talk. Because, truth be told, that was the only thing Jaime could offer, the only thing he could give, however meager, however useless that was – _and still is_.

He stood there and waited until she emerged from her chamber in silence. Brienne seemed bewildered at first, but made no word about it, asked no questions, just acknowledged Jaime’s presence there, and so they walked away from her chamber in silence, leaving the shadows of the night to creep through the hallway, focusing on other things, on the distant future.

In contrast to him, Brienne _truly_ loved her father, with all of her heart. Very much unlike Tywin Lannister, Lord Selwyn Tarth was an honorable man, a good man, and he didn’t do anything that should have brought him death at the hands at the self-proclaimed Queen of the Seven Kingdoms of the time, whose reign was neither long nor prosper. 

However, Brienne was not granted much and proper time to grieve his loss, with the dead marching South, having torn through the Wall already, moving South like a wave, ready to bury them all underneath endless snow, endless ice.

_You just swallow the invisible blood in your mouth and move on, you go marching, against an army of the dead if you must._

However, now that this very war was won, the future now also bears this grief, instead of just being made succumb in a grave somewhere up North.

“Many new responsibilities,” Jaime says, his features tensed. They didn’t really talk about how far he is involved into all of this, how much he is to blame, how much she hates him for it, or not.

“Indeed,” she agrees. “And that is why I think it’s high time that I… return. That I go home. I left many duties neglected when I followed Renly. I am the last living child to my Father, and as such… I am to act. Because he is dead now… so… there is just me.”

He nods slowly, understanding. “You have to help your people. Make arrangements. Help with the reconstruction.”

Brienne lets out a long sigh. “I still don’t know what awaits me there, but I suppose I am bound to find out. Well, that is once Sam lets me travel again.”

“He just wants to be sure that your leg won’t get any worse than it already is. And frankly speaking, I agree with him on that matter,” Jaime argues. “Though I understand that you… need to get home, rather sooner than later.”

“It’s a strange sort of limbo,” she mutters pensively. “A part of me wants to stay here, doesn’t want to go, while another… wants nothing more than that, wants nothing more but see blue waters and green forests.”

Brienne’s voice breaks towards the end, though the rupture is almost not audible. However, Jaime catches it at once. Her voice is one of the things most familiar to him by now, the changes, the shifts, how it breaks, how it rises, how it falls.

“Back after I killed Aerys and people were discussing as to how to deal with the Kingslayer, I found myself wishing to be home more than anything else, while at the same time, I didn’t want to return at all,” he tells her.

Brienne turns her head in his direction, blinking. “Did you? I thought I was the only one to ever have such a strange sort of battle inside her head.”

Jaime laughs softly. “No, you’re not.”

 _You’re not alone_ , he would like to add, but cannot seem to find the voice for it, because it breaks before he can even make it a sound, a word.

“While my father was still… alive,” Brienne goes on, struggling to say the word that makes her personal tragedy real all over, inevitable. “I always bore the hope that he’d have more children, so that I would not have to face that lifestyle I saw myself unfit of. However, now it seems that I will have to grow into that role.”

“As tall as you stand, I assume it won’t take you too long. Think about it, you helped negotiate a bloodless siege at Riverrun, too,” he argues, hoping that the meager encouragement will not prove to be entirely fruitless.

“ _You_ made that happen,” she corrects him.

Jaime shakes his head. “If not for you, I don’t know if I would have done it, would have managed to do it.”

“I am fairly certain you would have,” she argues.

“How so?” He frowns.

Brienne shrugs. “I just do.”

They pause.

“In any case… thinking about it, my Father will at least get what he wanted – namely me taking up on the duties of his heir… It’d seem to me that you have a similar change of your position to undergo,” Brienne exhales.

“It’d seem so. As it appears, I inherited the remains of a crumbling Lannister Empire, too, being the oldest living son to Tywin Lannister,” Jaime snorts.

He is still Lord of Casterly Rock by virtue of the titles given to him by the former royals now long since dead, however much that place is still of value after he gave it up to Tyrion to capture the Unsullied.

“I wondered…,” Brienne says, wrinkling her nose pensively.

“About what?” he asks.

“The Iron Throne and who’s going to take it.”

Jaime huffs. “You mean if anything remained of that lump of swords they made a chair of after it’s been blown up in a massive green fire to destroy some of the army of the dead as they managed to cross South?”

“Yes.”

“That is _thankfully_ not up to me to decide,” Jaime sighs. “I will happily let my brother and the others fight over the matter. If anyone were to ask me, we should keep it as the lump of metal that it was and still is – and leave it there, start over, and let it stand as a memorabilia of the times of the Game of Thrones that was hardly a game. To me… it’d be best if the Iron Throne died with Cersei.”

The taste is still bitter on his tongue. That the woman is gone now for whom he sacrificed so much, whom he believed loved him as fiercely as he loved her, without reason, without boundaries, it doesn’t always process for Jaime.

However, he reminds himself that both made a decision. Cersei stayed, she chose rule over him, and Jaime chose trying to protect the realm over her. Rumor has it that when they evacuated the city, she sat on the Throne and said that she would not leave it, _ever_. Jaime doesn’t give too much on rumors. He was not there, and if anyone should know how people’s voice tend to create a twisted image of reality, then it is the man known as the Kingslayer. He just realized by far too late her appetite for power, and didn’t find a way to stop it. It is a guilt he knows he will have to carry for the rest of his days, but he is past the point to blame only just himself. Cersei made choices, too. She chose this life, this throne, she chose this death, and Jaime chose another.

“After so many people fought over it as though it was the only thing that ever mattered, it seems hard to imagine that people will give up on it all of a sudden,” Brienne says, pulling Jaime out of his thoughts, back to the silver planes of snow and to her big blue eyes looking at him, cutting past all layers of leather and cotton he is cloaked in.

“The discussions are wild amongst those who now mean to decide. I suppose what is most likely to happen is a return to the very old,” Jaime says. “At least Tyrion seemed very much thrilled about the idea when he told me about it some time back.”

“You mean the old Seven Kingdoms.”

“ _New_ Seven Kingdoms, maybe Six, maybe Nine, maybe Three, who is to tell? I suppose it might be fore the better if _that_ were the outcome rather than having someone sit the Iron Throne again, only just to keep the old wheels turning. But that is something only time will show,” he exhales wearily. “As of now, rebuilding the parts of the world destroyed is what will continue to take precedence. So I will happily leave those discussions to the witty and the powerful instead.”

Though Jaime must admit that it still baffles him that now time is something no longer running out, but something offering fertile ground for futures to grow. Back in the day, time was something Jaime always chased. Not having enough time to connect to the three children he could never call his own. Not having enough time to prevent disaster. Not having enough time to pursue his own wishes. Stealing away, looming in dark corners.

Time was always running out, and suddenly there is a sense of time being there enough to fill a life not just on the verge of ending.

“So you may succeed to the honor of a king after all,” Brienne argues with a grin, teasing. “If you were to be declared King of one of the Seven or Six or Three New Kingdoms. A new Lann the Clever.”

“Don’t remind me,” he groans, amused, kicking some snow away. “I just keep getting pushed into positions I did not ask for, as it appears. But oh well, as it seems, you may also succeed to such honor. Think about it!”

Brienne frowns at him, curling her lips, furrowing her eyebrows. “How so? While my position on Tarth is now a very palpable future, that would by no means entitle me to lands beyond the Sapphire Isle. Neither would I ask for it.”

“Your Lord Father was one of the few high lords still alive in the Stormlands, who was valued and appreciated by so many, as far as I am concerned, and you succeeded to that honor.”

“It would have been up to Robert Baratheon’s bastard son, I assume,” Brienne argues.

“Even if the lad had made it through the war, you think it would have been wise to put another ruler in place who would have known about as little about politics as I know about Essosi medicine? The lords of the Stormlands would have been fools to even consider such a thing. Then fighting over the territories would have been just as wise, and that is already stupid in itself.”

“Well, it’s no longer an option anyway…,” Brienne sighs.

Gendry, bastard son to Robert Baratheon, and gifted smith who could even work with the metals of Old Valyria, swung his Warhammer as bravely as his father had once done, but in the end, he became one of the bodies to be counted, the Baratheon bloodline run dry.

“No…,” Jaime mutters. “Is it true, then, what I heard about Arya?”

Brienne sucks her lower lip into her mouth. “Her wish to travel further West than anyone before, you mean? As far as I know, his death… it broke something inside her that even her family could not keep together. Perhaps she has to go in order to return.”

He flashes a small grin at her. “Though you would rather not have that at all, right?”

“Most certainly not,” Brienne agrees, shaking her head slowly. “I made a promise to her mother. I made a promise to her and Lady Sansa. That didn’t stop when they returned to Winterfell. But… it is not my decision to make.”

“And what does Sansa think of it?”

Brienne kicks some snow away with her good leg. “I was surprised that she was rather calm about the matter. Over the course of the battle against the dead, the two learned to understand each other in ways that they could not before, or so Lady Sansa told me in a private moment… She understands that Arya wants to go, perhaps even has to go. That doesn’t keep the pain away from her, but… she gets it.”

“Well, if there is someone to survive even such pain, then it is Sansa Stark.”

“Very true.” Brienne nods, flashing an admiring smirk towards the end. “She survived things that would have meant the death for most, and that without ever picking up sword or shield.”

“You would rather keep an eye on them,” Jaime concludes with a grin.

“Not just one,” she says, chuckling softly. “But it’s as Lady Sansa said to me a while back… for that, she doesn’t need me. There are people who can protect her now. I have other things to take care of now, and they don’t lie in the North. They lie South. Home.”

“So, it may be true after all that you may be stuck in the same situation as I am, if it is decided that I become a King, you may just as well wind up being a Queen.”

Brienne snorts. “Do you mean to threaten me, Ser?”

“I would never do such a thing. After you took the White Walkers apart by the dozen, I would do better not to make you angry with me again. Gods know what you’d do to me,” Jaime laughs.

“I dare to have my doubts that you would manage.”

“Not to provoke you to anger?” he snickers. “Well, that may be on you, not me.”

She rolls her eyes at him.

“Though, thinking about it, I may actually find a way to slip out of my duties a bit,” Jaime ponders. “If I am to be King or Lord or Warden of Casterly Rock, or whatever remained of it, I could still name Tyrion as my proxy.”

After all, there is no longer a Tywin Lannister who would rather die than see Tyrion ruling over the Rock. There is now Jaime Lannister, and Jaime has yet to decide about what future he will create, with whom, and in what fashion.

_I get to decide. I get to choose. Choose._

“After all this time, after all you underwent to serve duty, you want to run from it the first chance you get?” Brienne scoffs.

Jaime shrugs, amused. “I like the thought of having options.”

“A choice, you mean.”

“I am thinking as of late that you cannot have a choice unless you have options. And so, I can only ever choose duty if I have options,” Jaime explains.

“So? What of you? What do you plan on doing now, now that you have options, now that you have to make a choice?” she asks with a bit of a tease, though there seems to be earnest interest in her voice, despite the fact that she tries to keep it hidden.

“It just dawned on me that I didn’t ask myself that question in a long time, as I sat here… It was just about making it from one day to the next. Future seemed far too fragile. Whenever I thought too far, it backfired.”

“It’s different now, though?” Brienne asks.

“I’d hope so,” Jaime exhales. “What is there now but the future?”

All past gone, safe for Tyrion.

His children – dead, and as for the last one, a lie that slipped from her tongue too easily to bind him, or so Jaime learned by the time it was far too late.

His sister and former lover – dead.

The world at large that is yet to grow seems to be the undead now, the thing that is alive.

And life is the only thing that matters now.

It was a fight of the living and the dead – and the living won.

Life won.

“True again,” Brienne agrees quietly.

“I suppose I will have to carry out my duties, that this is my choice. Large parts of the lands were destroyed. Winter has come. And it’ll take some time until Spring will get through to us… so… rebuilding is what we are meant to do. So yes, it appears to be that we will share a very similar destiny after all.”

“And that we will choose it,” she adds, silence spreading around them after the last tone leaves her chapped lips.

Jaime swallows, not looking at her. “… Brienne?”

“Yes?” She blinks at him.

“We never really talked about your father,” he goes on, his chest suddenly tight to the point that he can hardly suck in the cold air chilling his bones.

Because there is a choice he pushed away before, but Jaime has to get that of his chest, has to say it, has to, has to.

“We did just now,” Brienne argues with a frown.

“Not like that, not just in passing. I mean… I never…,” he mutters, struggling for the words to tumble out of his mouth to where he needs them.

Inside Jaime’s mind, the words came out clearly, comprehensibly, with strength, every syllable bearing meaning, but now he is a stuttering mess.

 _Of course_.

“You never _what_?” she asks, trying to make sense of him.

“Apologized,” Jaime manages to say at last, letting out a light cough.

Brienne’s frown only ever deepens. “What would you apologize for?”

“That your father died.”

“You mean…,” she mutters, and he completes, “Euron did it upon Cersei’s order.”

“I know,” Brienne says mutely.

“Well, so _that_ is what I owe you an apology for… did all this time, but… there was so much else going on that I didn’t know when to do it, to make it matter, to… show you that I mean it when I say it,” Jaime explains, struggling to gather the pieces of the speech he has gone through some many sleepless nights ever since an uncertain future arose above the silvery clouds.

Brienne looks at him, studies him, her big blue eyes piercing right through Jaime. “So you want to ask my forgiveness for what Cersei ordered that bastard of a man to do and that he then carried out with what I imagine to have been nothing but sick joy?”

“Well, of course. Yes. I know that it changes nothing about it, but I just… I just find it right that you… that I…”

“So you think that I blame you for this,” Brienne goes on, cutting through the tatters of Jaime’s speech with the sharp silver knife that is her tongue.

“Cersei wanted to punish me. She wanted revenge. And that made Tarth a target. I did,” he says, feeling as though his heart just sank into the pit of his stomach.

“Did you order for the ambush on Tarth?” Brienne then questions, which has Jaime frown at her. “What? No.”

“Did you execute my father?” she goes on, her facial expression completely blank.

“No.”

“Did you travel to Tarth to hurt my people?”

“No.”

Brienne licks her lips. “Then you tell me, how would I blame you for that when there is someone who executed my father and someone who ordered for it – who is _not_ you?”

“I made a choice, and that choice…,” Jaime wants to say, but he doesn’t get to it, because Brienne cuts him off before he can pour out more words of apology and regret, “You made the right choice. The _only_ choice one should have made, by the time. You did what I asked of you. You did what was the right thing. How are you to blame for the wrong others did, for their wrong choices?”

Jaime blinks at her. “To you, I bear no fault for this?”

“Some time ago, I talked to Ser Davos. And he told me about his involvement in Renly’s murder. He was the one who brought the Red Woman close to him, and it was her shadow that killed him. I slew Stannis because he ordered for it. But already the Red Woman was not my responsibility. Her life was not mine to take, it was not up to me to judge her, just like it’s not up to me to judge Ser Davos. And so it is not up to me to judge you. And even if I saw it as my right or duty… I could not. I couldn’t ever.”

“It’s just…,” he mutter.

“I suppose you have to get used to the idea that there are certainly things for which you are to blame, but not all of them. Even less so when there is no one to judge you beside yourself,” Brienne tells him.

Jaime looks at her for a long moment, allows himself to get lost in the blue of her eyes that hold surprising warmth against the odds of their cold color.

“I must say that this comes… unexpected,” he admits, running his fingers over the hairs in his back.

Jaime expected to see hurt and pain that she kept contained because of the war, because other things come first now, but now the time came, and Brienne doesn’t blame him, doesn’t see the bad in him for what happened.

To him, she often proves to be the impossibility within the possible.

“Hardly surprising to me,” she huffs, offering a feeble sort of smile. “You can be extremely dense when it comes to those kinds of things.”

“Such foul words coming out of your mouth as of late. I do not believe that such language is appropriate for the Lady of Tarth,” Jaime says, trying to fall back into the pattern, the mood, the ease of it, allowing for the dark thoughts of guilt to rise high into the sky, away, away, until they mix with the silver of the sky, the gray of the clouds, join uncertain futures without shape or direction.

“Well, same is true for you, then. It does not befit the Lord of Casterly Rock, perhaps a future king, to think of himself in such a manner. That lord still has a lot to accomplish, a lot left to do,” Brienne says, and of that Jaime is certain by the sound of her voice, meaning it.

“A lot left to rebuild,” he sighs.

A lot to redeem himself for.

A lot of debt to repay.

 _And yet…_ _a lot to live_.

They look out onto the silvery snow planes from which dark ashes rise into a gray sky.

“And still a lot of people to give the last honors to,” she adds solemnly, watching the dark clouds drifting away.

“In fact,” he whispers. “So many paid the price so that those who live now actually have a chance of a life.”

“War is never fair.”

“No, it’s not.”

_It makes monsters of us all._

“Let’s just hope that we will have some more years before the next rebellion or war breaks out,” Jaime adds with a weak smirk.

Because that is actually no joking matter. Peace is no natural occurrence at the end of such a war. It doesn’t seem to be part of the human condition in the first place, as far as he is concerned. Once all have recovered some, a return to the old, a return to the blood feuds, a return to the old battle over territories, marks on the map, is not at all farfetched, but rather the most natural consequence.

The world has not yet seen true times of peace.

And if no new system comes in place, Jaime cannot imagine that the wheel will stop turning.

“I hope so, too. War is damn well stupid,” Brienne huffs, pulling her legs closer to her chest as far as her injured limb allows for it. “Especially during times such as these.”

“Please tell that to the lords and ladies once they start to fuss over who gets what piece of Westeros,” Jaime laughs.

“I don’t think they would listen to me even if I tried,” she huffs.

“Oh, just draw Oathkeeper to back up your claim. I bet that will get you their undivided attention. And in any case, they will have to listen to the Queen of the Stormlands.”

“Now knock that foolery off already,” she groans. “That is not going to happen, don't be madder than you are anyway.”

“That is not up to you to say.”

“Neither to you.”

“In fact,” Jaime agrees, reaching into his pocket to fish out a silver coin. He holds it against the dim light once before flipping it a few times. “It’s up to fate, how fate will flip the coin, determining whether the Lady of Tarth will be Queen or not.”

“Is there any certain reason why you carry a silver stag around with you?” she asks, frowning as he keeps twisting it between his still rather clumsy fingers of his left hand.

“A Lannister always pays his debts, didn’t you know?” he replies with a grin.

“And how does your family’s saying have to do with the silver coin?” she asks.

Jaime stops turning it, leaving it in the center of his gloved palm to glance at the shining object. “I owe someone a debt. It occurred to me only today that I totally forgot.”

“What did you do?” Brienne asks.

“I made a bet,” he answers.

The blonde woman looks at him rather irritated. “Why would you do that?”

“I thought I would win for certain,” Jaime says with a shrug of his shoulders. “Otherwise I wouldn’t have taken a bet. I am not one to take a risk.”

“Right,” she snorts. “You and risks… that _never_ goes together.”

“When it comes to gambles, I don’t,” he lectures her, if teasingly. “I was never into gambling anyway.”

Brienne huffs at him in amusement. “Stands to reason if you keep losing like that.”

“Well, it was worth it, I suppose,” he replies, looking back at the coin, running his thumb over the ridged, but otherwise smooth surface, which almost blends in with the color of the sky when he holds it closer to the light.

“Was it?” she asks.

“I’d think so.”

“Then what was the bet about?” Brienne wants to know.

“As if I would tell you that,” he laughs.

She shakes her head, glancing ahead again. “Well, if you rather keep to yourself, then that is what you are to do. That’s none of my concern.”

There is a longer moment of silence, the crunching of the snow under their movements being the only sounds turning up between them.

It is Brienne who speaks up again, her eyes turned towards the sky blurring out all edges. “Ever since it became clear that the White Walkers were marching, I thought that I would die here… I was so certain of it, even before the big battle came. I would have taken any bet on that one matter.”

“I suppose it will take us both quite some time to accept that we are alive and that we will have to go on living, without the glory of a heroic death, one that would have gone down in history,” Jaime snorts.

“I don’t care about that,” she admits.

“Neither do I.”

“I know,” Brienne whispers.

“Though I suppose some songs will be sung in our honor. We were part of the big game, the Game of Thrones.”

Brienne snorts. “I’d like to think that I did my best until now to keep out of politics.”

“I think there is hardly any highborn lady who has trespassed as many Great Houses as you did,” Jaime chuckles. “Quite an achievement.”

“Are you implying that I am a turncloak?” she asks, raising an eyebrow at him.

“What a foolish thing would that be?” he laughs. “You are too damn loyal and righteous to be a turncloak. No, no. The point is that for two knights, we got dragged into politics far more often than we wanted to.”

“And will continue to, as it appears,” Brienne sighs.

“As it appears, yes,” he exhales. “Because we live.”

_And will continue to for however long, but for now, we will continue to be._

Jaime leans back to lie on his back, sinking into the snow, listening to the crunching and cracking as the ice crystals map his body.

“You will catch a cold like that,” she warns him.

“I survived fighting the literal dead, Brienne, I don’t think a cold will be the end of me.”

“Men died of smaller diseases,” Brienne argues.

“I am more endurable than that. Even getting my hand chopped off didn’t end me,” Jaime snorts.

“And what does that change of position do for you anyway?” Brienne asks.

“I don’t even know. I don’t even care,” Jaime sighs, a smirk flashing over his face as he watches the sun, which is all but a blurry disk hanging high in the sky.

“I hope you didn’t take that brew from the Wildlings. As far as I a concerned, it makes you see stars and what not… and may cause momentary blindness, or so I was told,” Brienne tells him.

“Wouldn’t ever touch it,” Jaime huffs. “I am a Lannister. We go with arbor, if at all.”

“Well, being born a Lannister seemingly doesn’t prevent you from foolery.”

“It never did, it only ever prevented us from having a bad taste in beverages.”

“Such an achievement,” she snorts.

“I know,” he laughs. “Though I hope the Wildlings will soon retreat to the new landmarks in the North. It’s getting far too crowded. And they can take the Dothraki right with them for all I care.”

“Well, the Dothraki are hardly the Wildlings’ responsibility,” she argues.

“I know, that is up to the Dragon Queen, but I just hope she sees that they are not… supposed to be here. Call me suspicious, but I can’t believe that they will just go out of their old ways and be upstanding citizens now, and that to a culture they barely know, let alone acknowledge,” Jaime mutters. “But anyway, could we stop talking politics?”

“What? You, aspiring King of the Rock don’t want to talk about politics?” she teases.

“That evil will come upon me soon enough. So, I might just as well talk about what I wish to speak of for as long as I can,” Jaime argues.

“Then what would like to talk about instead?” Brienne asks.

 _Good question_ , he thinks to himself. _Truth be told, there is something I would like to say, but I don’t even know where to begin_.

Jaime couldn’t even gather the shreds and pieces to somehow sputter out the way his apology came across. Because what he would like to speak of freely… it is far more nebulous, much harder to grasp.

It’s no silver coin, it’s a silvery sky, something you can only ever chase but never reach.

 _Or can you_?

Stranger things have happened. That very thing has occurred, Jaime knows.

It happened.

It was real, it still is.

So perhaps speaking of it is not as entirely impossible?

Because the impossible seems strangely possible as of late.

What happened… it was a thing of impossibility, a thing in passing, looming pasts hiding behind every corner and uncertain futures just out the dark windows, only ever letting in sparse moonlight to make visible outlines, shapes as though they were cut from thin metal.

Jaime wouldn't be able to tell how it began and who started. He knows that Brienne and he were walking down the hallways, talking about the inevitable, the war, tactics, whatever came to mind. Brienne had asked him quietly to stop joking about the matter, though she noted that she is aware that he only ever does it to conceal his own emotions. And all quips about death and glory slipped from his mouth, leaving him only ever looking at her, her outlines jumping up and down like sharp blades.

All Jaime can recall is that at some point, it began.

Two outlines became one, one the echo of the other, the mirror image without a mirror. Their kiss was desperate, their kiss was needed, was simple need, as though it was the only matter in the world that kept them from falling to pieces in the face of ultimate doom against the dead. The kiss was feverish, something that, to Jaime, felt as though it was long overdue. He can still feel the burn on his lips, and how it was only ever doused by small droplets of water to temper the metal mapping their bodies.

Tears mixing, becoming one, for lives lost, lives never meant to return, and lives meant to be lost on the following day, their own included. Tears for the future that was likely to never come. Was most certain to never come. For all the wrong decisions, for all the chances neglected, all those chances to live instead to fight, to have the life they ran from when still too young of age to understand all the gravitas certain decisions came with. Tears for the families lost, the families never had, the families never meant to be. Tears for themselves and for each other. Tears for the fear of losing one another after it took so many thousand miles over and over to have them meet, have their metal collide, mold into one, only to spring apart again by fate’s swing of the hammer.

He touched her hair, memorized the texture of it, the feel of it, the silvery painted outlines. He tried to remember, in the vain hope to carry at least the memory over into the next life, whatever shape it may take now, fearing for the moment to break apart, break into a million pieces, shards of smoked glass.

Jaime feared that Brienne would open her eyes, see the shape of him only ever to remember whose shape looked far too familiar, far too similar, for far too long, who ordered for the murder of her one living relative, her one family left, her father.

He cannot say if she opened her eyes while they stood so close to one another that they could feel each other’s breath against clammy skin. All he can say is that instead of running, which was what he expected her to do after that kiss, he only eve felt the brush of Brienne’s fingers against his exposed wrist, a lingering in the moment for just a while longer, before she said to him that she would see him on the battlefield, hiding away in the shadows, taking with her all the blades making up the shape of her.

They didn’t talk about it. Not on the day they got ready, not as they sat by each other’s side and helped fix each other’s armors. In general, there were only few words exchanged that day, neither one knowing what to say exactly.

As they dismounted they saddled up to ride into battle, the one exchange that mattered was as simple as it could have been.

“I hope to see you on the other side.”

“Whatever side that will be, but yes.”

And over all the blood and torn flesh, over all the pain and shouts of agony, the ice and the fire, that kiss stayed hidden in the shadows from which it was born.

An impossible thing was hidden away from the world.

But is now the time to bring it back to the light, with the sky so gray?

Is it time to begin? Even at the risk of having it end?

Jaime looks back at the silver coin in his hand, making a choice.

“You know, there is one epiphany that I actually reached. Already a while back, actually. But… I am still a slow learner,” he says, straightening back up.

“I think you don’t give yourself enough credit. For that you claim to be a slow learner, you have come pretty far by now.”

Jaime grins at her, brushing some of the snow off his coat and cloak.

“So? What epiphany did you reach and when did you find that silver lining?” Brienne questions.

“It seems like an eternity ago,” he sighs. “Back at Harrenhal.”

“ _Harrenhal_?” Brienne repeats, blinking. “That _really_ was a long time ago.”

 _Almost as though a whole life now stands between that time and the_ _now_ , Brienne thinks to herself.

Time kept shifting out of place, took on monstrous shapes. So many things just happened, all at once, as though the world turned faster, trying to outrun itself in a race against an enemy no one has ever heard of or saw its face.

Brienne has a hard time trying to list the events that took place thereafter, not just in her own life, but Jaime’s, too, what will be history some many hundreds of years from now, the great scale, the Great War against the Dead. Wars were fought, battles lost, battles won, a Lady of Winterfell rescued against all odds, kings died, were unmade, queens rose above with wildfire, only to be consumed by it, ancient beasts rose from ice and fire.

There are so many things to remember that it is hard to bear in mind that only a few years have passed since. History normally works so very slowly, but this age, it seems to be one of change, cutting through time like a silver dagger.

Harrenhal is now a distant memory, though, once called back to mind, the images immediate, the throbbing pain in her neck right back where there are now no more than fading scars, the cold, damp air leaving her out of breath, the moist, rough surface of the tourney sword Locke and his men gave her to fend the bear off with, or rather, to make a joke of her even more than it was to let her battle a bear in a pink dress.

“… Maybe you are a slow learner after all, if you have a realization about Harrenhal only at _this_ point of time,” she comments uncertainly, not knowing what Jaime is trying to get at. Brienne always had a bit of trouble reading him past a certain point. That man understands to conceal himself well most of the time.

Though Brienne knows that he does always manage to uphold the charade. It fell, coincidentally, at Harrenhal, it started to crumble after the Bloody Mummers cut off his sword hand. And she saw it laying bare before her a few times after he joined them in the North, sitting by the fireplace of either one’s chamber, wrestling with past, present, and future in the face of the upcoming war.

Brienne saw all defenses fall when Jaime, for the first time since coming to the North, talked about Tommen’s death, and his grief for not having been a father to him for the nature of the relationship he was born from, for the choice he and Cersei made “what seems like an eternity ago these days,” as he said, his lips barely moving apart as he spoke.

She saw the pain in the tears he didn't allow to fall, she saw it in the way he kept gazing at the fire, she saw it in his eyes whenever he dared to let them meet hers halfway. As though he was not entitled to that pain, as though it was not his to have.

However, there are those moments when he seems to be able to hide from her, conceal himself behind easy smiles or empty looks that could mean nothing or everything all at once.

That man will forever remain a mystery at some point I cannot travel past, it seems.

“Perhaps,” he laughs, and if Brienne is not mistaken, there is suddenly a tension within him that wasn’t there before as he gazed over planes of snow shining like precious silver spread out like a cloak over the landscape before them.

“Well?”

He licks his lips. “The epiphany actually occurred to me twice.”

“And when did it return to you?” she asks.

“That moment the White Walker swung his scythe at you and you went down after he managed to deliver that blow to your knee. For a moment, I thought you were done for,” Jaime answers.

“Truth be told, I thought so, too,” Brienne admits feebly.

As the thing loomed above her, Brienne was sure that this was her last hour, her last breath. Though it had left her wondering if all had been worth it, if the life she was to lose was lived to the fullest, if all that remained was service to different lords and ladies, the great cause of life itself, and a stolen kiss amidst the shadows, a small fantasy inside her head of what could have been if not for the world  having turned too many times already.

However, she managed to fend off the beast, and then Jaime came charging to protect her as she gathered herself. And for some strange reason beyond her comprehension, Brienne found might in her body when she thought she could walk no more, could not fight no more. Her arms moved, her legs walked, she carried on and on and on again.

 _Forward, forward, ahead, ahead, because there was no going back_.

“Back by the bear pit, I thought you were done for, too. The first moment I saw that you were down there, I thought that you were as good as dead. And I thought it all the while as we rode back to come get you. What if she is dead upon my return? was what I kept repeating inside my mind over and over. The horse could not run fast enough for me. The uncertainty was driving me insane.”

Brienne looks at him. She knows that he is one amongst few who, after their initial animosity that came with the nature of their arrangement of when Catelyn gave her the task escort Jaime back to King’s Landing in exchange for her daughters, making him her prisoner and her his prison guard, was one to care about her wellbeing, one to come to her rescue, save her again and again and then another time.

It was actually Jaime who, in a quiet moment by the fireplace, asked her if it weren’t the right time to go back to Tarth, following her father’s death, even though both knew he actually only ever asked in the vain hope that perhaps she would leave for safety. Though of course, both knew the answer to that request long before Jaime ever said the words.

“It was worth the try, I suppose,” was all he answered, giving Brienne a sad if bright sort of smile before they went on to discuss battle strategies for the remains of the night.

However, while Brienne is certain of his care for her and her safety, Jaime is rarely outspoken about it. He is the kind of man who does something instead of losing many words about the matter.

_It’s his actions that count, even more so than his words._

And Brienne already puts a lot of faith into his words for when they matter.

She trusts him, she trusts him now, and did for far longer than Brienne ever let him know, let anyone know, herself included.

_Because I was at truce with him for such a long time by now. And you need trust to have a truce, after all._

“The thought was already unspeakable back as I rode to Harrenhal. It remained such when I saw you down in the bear pit. And it was again when that White Walker almost got the better of you,” Jaime goes on.

“… What are you trying to tell me with that?” Brienne asks, chewing on her lower lip, noting the change in his voice, the ease leaving him, as though the snow absorbed it.

“The great epiphany that I had to have three times in order to understand it is actually quite a simple truth,” Jaime tells her. “Almost elegant in its simplicity, like a blade.”

“Which is?”

 _Do I want to know, though_?

“That losing you is the one thing my heart cannot bear.”

Brienne looks at Jaime, losing his shape as a cloud moves out of its way, allowing some of the sunlight through the heavy smoke, painting his contours silver.

“A life without you… to me, it’s not worth much of anything. It’s worth nothing at all. My life means nothing to me if not for you having a part in it,” Jaime goes on hoarsely, stating the impossible.

Because the impossible is possible now.

“You are worth a whole lot, it's…,” she means to say, but Jaime interrupts her, “That’s not what I was trying to say. What I mean is… that the one great truth that I keep seeing is something I should have seen a long time ago, but that I did not because I remained clouded by the past and present, and a lack of imagination for a future that is actually… mine.”

Brienne swallows thickly, trying to catch his teasing smirk that would render all of this a joke, a jest, something unreal, something that is not an impossibility made possible. “And… what great truth is that?”

“That I wanted to tell you so many times that we have met by a wink of fate to stay, to stay with me. That, in the end, it was you who has, of all people I ever met my entire life, has inspired the best in me, brought it forth to the light when no one even thought it was hiding there in the first place. That I wanted to hold you close after the message of your father’s death reached you instead of just lingering outside your door, that I wanted kiss you before the night of the battle, more often than I’d like to admit.” He looks at her, focuses on nothing but her big blue eyes in a vastness of gray and silver. “That I love you and that I di for far longer than I ever dared to believe it myself. that is the one truth that I know.”

Brienne only ever stares at him, not knowing what to say or think. She already had no clue what do with herself when they kissed in the hall, hidden away in the shadows, a thing that Brienne had to reassure herself of being true over and over as she lied on her bed that same night, brushing her fingertips over her mouth, where she could still feel the humming of where their lips had collided, the bitter sweet pain of impossibility made real, even if only just in the shadows, even if only an act of desperation before what both thought was sure death.

However, now Brienne hears things she didn’t even dare to imagine inside her mind.

“The more I try to think of future, the more I think about you,” he goes on to admit when she still won’t talk, only ever uttering words with her eyes. “You are my concept of future. You made me see future so many times when I thought all hope was lost. You mean future to me. And if it were my choice to make, if I got to choose, I’d choose the one future that has you in my life.”

 _We don’t get to choose who we love_.

“And whose choice is it if not yours?” Brienne asks, her voice quivering, but not from the cold.

“Yours, simple as that. It will always be yours,” Jaime tells her.

 _But we get to dare to let the other choose to love_.

Jaime is surprised when a small smirk flashes across her features, blurred out by silvery light making her unruly curls seem a pale gold, just like her lips, with which she speaks, “Do you want to hear a funny story?”

“At _this_ point of time?” He grimaces, actually having expected more sincerity from Brienne in particular at this point, but then laughs anyway. “Of course, why not?”

Even now, that woman tends to surprise him.

“It seems to me that we have a lot more in common than we want to believe at times,” Brienne begins, not looking at him as she speaks.

“How so?” he asks.

“I, too, am a slow learner.”

“Oh yes?” he says with an uncertain smile. “How?”

Brienne nods her head slowly. “A truth kept arising three times for me, too. But for me, it was not Harrenhal. It was King’s Landing. Joffrey’s wedding.”

“And what truth did that day teach you?” Jaime frowns.

“The day did not teach it to me, but in fact, your sister did,” Brienne says, which takes Jaime by surprise.

“Cersei? What did she say to you?” he questions. Jaime can remember seeing Cersei talk to her, which only assured him that it was high time to get Brienne out of King’s Landing, out of the danger that flowed from Cersei already back then.

 _And yet, I realized far too late just how far that bad blood flowed_.  

“She knew something about me that I didn’t want to admit to myself by the time,” Brienne begins to explain. “It was too dangerous to believe. And it morphed into something I had to hide away deep within myself once I went on the quest to find Sansa. Finding her was more urgent, more important… and even more likelier than I believed that one truth to ever be able to come to fruition.”

Jaime looks at her, blinking, trying to make sense of this, of the moment he opened up, the impossibility he dared to expose to the light of a new day, only to find it bathed in so much light that he can no longer see the result, what became of the impossibility once light consumed it.

“It came back to me as I laid on my back on the battlefield and the world turned dark by the edges as the pain kept pulling me down,” Brienne continues.

“Why?”

“Because the one thought on my mind was not the battle lost, the battle own, not Sansa, not Lady Catelyn, not even my dear Father. I didn’t think about my life as a knight without the actual title. I did not think of Renly, his death and how I would join him. I didn’t think about him in such a long time,” Brienne admits.

_He was far gone from my mind, in the deepest corners, far, far away… And it was… alright._

“Then what thought _was_ on your mind?” Jaime questions cautiously, hesitantly.

Brienne tilts her head upwards slightly, not looking at anything but the silver disk dangling from the sky. “The only thing I could think of was the kiss. I thought I was going to die and all I could think of was that kiss in all of its detail. All I could hear inside my head was my own voice calling out to me: ‘Was that supposed to be all? Was that all love I would ever receive? The only kiss I am ever going to have?’ The thought wouldn’t let me go even as I got back up. That kiss, that kiss, that kiss.”

Jaime says nothing, just looks at her, watches her lips as they close, after they let out an admission he never thought he would hear in this world.

“Cersei told me that I loved you. and my mind, amidst the battlefield, was screaming at me that I only ever shared one kiss with the man I truly loved. And now it turns out that the thing I deemed impossible, even more so than finding Sansa, was actually possible… actually _is_ possible. If you are a slow learner, then I am even more achingly slow than you are. For that I always prided myself being a brave knight, I don’t seem to be as brave as I give myself credit for when it comes to… the things that actually matter, the things that come to mind when you think you’ll die.”

Jaime says nothing in return, but instead of just glancing at her as before, he comes closer, his fingers enclosing her jaw, which still bears all colors of the rainbow from the bruises she received in the battle. He pulls her to him to press his lips on hers, back to where they once belonged in the shadows of a hallway, but now are meant to belong to in the silver light of a new day, a new future.

Because after fighting the dead and winning, how impossible can a kiss be?

How impossible can their love be?

And what does it matter anyway?

 Once they pull away, mist wafting around their bruised lips, the two linger only inches from each other’s face, not daring to break contact yet, not daring to pull away, because they did for far too long, until it was almost too late, but just almost, as it appears.

“Took us quite some time to admit that to ourselves,” Jaime mutters, a small smirk tugging at his lips, his fingers still resting on the nape of her neck, so he can feel the fine hairs there standing upright.

“And to each other,” Brienne whispers.

“Slow learners indeed.”

“Well, so long we learn at some point…,” she sighs, not yet knowing how all of that is real now, when she deemed it a thing to only ever exist in the shadows, but at the same time, finding it hard to care, because she can feel Jaime close to her, can feel his warmth spreading throughout her even in the cold, because her lips are still singing a song rather strange but no longer completely unfamiliar.

A bird flits across the sky, the crow shrieking once before disappearing again, shaking the gray above their heads, cracking it open like an egg, and just as this creature cuts through the silver sky like a dagger, Brienne finds herself light where she felt heavy, as though something was lifted off her chest, off her shoulders, set aflame so it may rise to the clouds above along with the smoke lingering by the horizon.

She never thought that it could be so easy. Brienne thought it would wear heavy, would tear her head down in shame, in uncertainty, but right at this moment, she is weightless, only held down by Jaime’s presence beside her, touching her, holding her.

“Though we have some many lessons to learn, still,” Jaime says, pulling Brienne out of her thoughts, back to his brilliant eyes glancing at him with a familiarity that she shares with no one else but him these days. “And now we seem to have the time for it.”

And he wants to use it, he wants to use it now.

Because Jaime is done waiting, is done standing still.

If the sky won’t move, then so they will have to.

He leans forward again to press a gentle kiss to her lips, relieved to feel her move against him, too, move with him, pull him closer, and the longer they connect, the clearer it becomes to them both that there is no reason to hesitate anymore.

Because they have the time now. They have a life to live now.

So why not use it? Why not choose it?

Jaime leans his forehead against hers once they break the kiss, nostrils flaring, feeling warmth spread throughout him. “It’s good to know that we both agree on how to use that time wisely.”

She flashes a small, uncertain smile at him, a private smile that Jaime only ever caught when he joined the armies in the North to fight the others, a tug of the lips with bowed head that Brienne tried her best to hide away from the world, but could not keep away from him.

“I think it’s time that we head back inside,” he says after a long while of just lingering in the crunching snow, bearing their shape now, an imprint soon to be swallowed by the freshly falling snow, bringing movement to an otherwise unmoving sky. “It’s getting rather cold.”

“Oh, so _now_ you start freezing?” she huffs, surprising herself at how easy it is to slip back into the normal, after the impossible just happened once more.

Though perhaps that is the point: That it _is_ normal, that it was normal even before their lips collided, though they just didn’t realize it until they did, that it makes sense, if only just between them, even in a world that stopped making sense a long time ago.

“I am that slow, we both know that by now,” he chuckles softly, shifting his weight over to his left to stand up, turning his back on the silver sky to look at her, no one and nothing but her.

Jaime makes a theatrical gesture at her to take his hand. “May I help?”

She glowers at him, narrowing her big blue eyes at Jaime, which only ever has him laugh.

 _Some things never change_ , he thinks to himself. _Gladly so, while others, just as gladly… do._  

“Now don't be stubborn. _My lady_ will not make her leg any worse with that foolery of hers,” Jaime says with a grin, his hand on his hip, allowing himself to be daring, to make a leap forward after he walked circles for far too long.

The red on her cheeks spreads across her pale complexion, though her face is reddened from the cold anyway. Brienne holds out her hand hesitantly, daring to hold on, hold on to him. Jaime stretches his right out to her out of reflex, actually having intended to use the one hand that he has left, but before he can even make a joke about it, Brienne already took a firm grip of his right arm and he pulls her up out of reflex.

Because, apparently, Brienne is one of the few people who never cared to mind about his stump. She sees the strength in the whole of him, and not just in a hand now gone, but seemingly not missed – by her, at least.

“Thank you,” she mutters, barely moving her lips apart as she speaks, which would amuse Jaime far more, if he wasn’t still taken aback by the ease with which her holding on to his arm came.

They look at each other for a moment longer, but then start to walk next to each other silently. Jaime takes the time, keeps her pace, has his eye on her as Brienne struggles over the snow, leaving uneven footsteps behind on freshly fallen snow that looks like chips of silver tossed upon the earth.

At last, the castle comes into sight, or rather, what remained of it after the assault by the White Walkers. Once they reach the courtyard, Jaime stops in his tracks, Brienne slowing almost at the exact same moment to look at him.  

“Is something wrong?” she asks. “I thought you wanted to head inside because you finally realized that you were freezing.”

Jaime offers an amused grin. “And I will gladly warm myself up beside you soon enough, but I have to one more thing to do. Though you can already head inside and wait for me. It won’t be long, I promise,” Jaime says, giving her arm a gentle squeeze.

“And what is that?” she questions.

He flips the silver coin in the air once, catching it with his gloved hand. “I still have that debt to pay.”

Brienne says nothing at that, only slowly nods her head. “Alright.”

Jaime gives her a smile before walking over muddy ground until he reaches a small corner. Though no one ever gave it the name, it became a small altar for those to be remembered. Over the past few days more and more tokens of men and women who fell or in memory of them were placed there, along with a few obsidian candles that the young Maester, for all Jaime gathered, actually _stole_ while at the Citadel, so that they burn even with snow falling, winds blowing, and tears being shed.

Jaime kneels down before the traces of the people gone, who are far too many in number, and even more in number of those who have no one to remember them anymore. He lets his gaze wander to one particular token, Tyrion’s idea, actually. He found an old cup in the kitchen, rusty by the edges, unused for years, but with a castle engraved on the side.

“He never got the castle either one of us promised him,” Tyrion had noted before he put down the token for Ser Bronn of the Blackwater, a man who never wanted to die a hero, always would have rather lived like a thief, but in the end, joined a battle and lost for the rest to win.

 _Because even those who claim that they don't care about anyone but themselves are likely only ever fooling themselves_.

And Ser Bronn of the Blackwater seemingly had that lesson to learn, too, having found a reason to fight in the Long Night, to fight a future not his, a life not his, but that of his son who was born only days before the battle ensued. Jaime only ever found out short before the war broke out, over a cup of wine drank in silence by the fireplace, where the black-haired man was not nearly as witty, but much more pensive.

Apparently, Lollys Stokeworth learned to love the man after they were no longer brought together by royal matchmaking. While Jaime crept around the palace after coming back to Riverrun, Bronn spent his time with the blonde woman, and not, as he had claimed, in the brothels and the taverns in and around King’s Landing.

Thence, Bronn died a death he likely never imagined for himself, for a life he never imagined to be responsible for other than his own.

“As much as you hate us two for repeating it, but a Lannister always pays his debts,” Jaime says, holding up the silver coin before dropping it into the wine-filled cup, a ritual Tyrion’s followed through with ever since he found the cup to put here.

With a plop, the silver coin sinks to the bottom of the goblet, fading to blackness as it is covered in the red of the wine, mixed with snow and ashes.

“You were right about that one thing – only the likes of me would find his lady on the battlefield,” Jaime says with a grin, looking at the rusty cup before him, the rim outlined by a thin ring of snow.

Bronn, short before the battle, had told Jaime that he is still a “fuckin’ fool” for not trying to “get under the furs” with Brienne “one last time before we all get fucked over by the dead fuckers.” Jaime had only ever scolded at him, not wanting to let truth dawn on him.

“I bet both my balls that you two fools will no longer be able to contain yourselves before we march into battle,” was all the sellsword had said before turning his back on Jaime and walking away.

“You won that bet,” Jaime says as he pushes back up from the ground.

 _And strangely so, I still turn out to be a winner in this bet, too_. _Because she is the prize_.

“I thank you for beating sense into me all the while, and for being a friend to me even though you rather would not have been.”

Jaime turns around and starts to walk away. He is surprised to see Brienne still by the archway leading inside, arms crossed over her chest, her bad leg angled and set against the wall so not to put additional weight on it.

“Didn't I tell you that you could already make your way inside?” Jaime asks with a frown. He was certain of it that he had done just that.

“You did, but I decided to wait up,” Brienne replies, rolling her broad shoulders.

Jaime grimaces. “But why _outside_?”

She shrugs, nodding upwards. Jaime turns around to see a silver slate of light cutting over the top of the castle’s wall. “I found your silver lining, as it appears.”

“Now, what a wink of fate,” Jaime laughs.

He grabs her by the arm to pull her along. “Though I think we shouldn’t chase silver linings in the sky.”

“But rather?” she asks, blinking, allowing herself to be pulled along anyway.

Away, away, ahead, ahead.

“We should rather find them in the here and now – and choose them.”

 _Because I choose you and you choose me_.

And that is no longer a faint hope of a silver lining.

It’s impossible made real.

It’s light brought out of the darkness.

A leap forward.

A step ahead.

Because every step towards the future starts with that – a choice.


	2. Sapphire

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jaime and Brienne travel to Tarth. 
> 
> Brienne has to find her place at home. 
> 
> Jaime has to find his place on Tarth. 
> 
> And together, the two have to figure out where their places are going to be inn each other's lives with all new responsibilites now loaded upon their shoulders in a world at disarray, in dire need of reconstruction and a new system to help regrow that which was destroyed in the Game of Thrones and the Long Night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello everyone, thanks for all those lovely comments and kudo. You guys made me weep in joy at your kindness. 
> 
> *hugs*
> 
> Oh yeah, I hereby make a change to the JB Theme order. Normally, this day should be painted golden, but I need to save that precious metal for later. So bear with me for putting the blue gemstones first. 
> 
> I hope you'll enjoy this installment. 
> 
> Much love! ♥♥♥

Brienne stands on the ship’s deck, hands tight around the railing, eyes closed as she takes in the smell of crisp, salty air, an odor so familiar to her that even though she hasn’t had it in her nose for years, Brienne is instantly back at a place still ahead of them while at the same time, right behind her.

The Sapphire Isle is still only just a speck of brown and green in an otherwise blue sea, but for Brienne, it feels as though she was already there, remembering the many times she paddled out with her own boat until her arms would hurt, only to pull the paddles in, lie own on the back and let the breeze wash all bad thoughts away, make her forget all jests and scolds, melted away by the sun shining down on her, carried away by the wind, over blue waters to unknown seas.

However, it is not just happiness that fills Brienne’s heart as she spends more and more time gazing out on familiar blue waters, shining like blue crystals that earned the isle its name. Brienne is anxious, very anxious, about how people will respond to her return. She never heard from her father how people reacted to her leaving the isle in favor of joining Renly. It never said anything in those letters that travelled back and forth, until she received the last at Winterfell, informing her of his demise. Brienne doesn’t know if people will accept her more than they did when she was still only just the ugly, boyish daughter to their lord, which she assumed only ever brought her a begrudging respect for matters of her birth, and not so much for who she was and what she was capable of.

Brienne found herself lying on the bed with eyes wide open some many times while at Winterfell, following the Long Night, glancing at the ceiling, whispers and snickers of the past ringing in her ears during those hours as she pondered what future is to await her now on the Sapphire Isle. Just like her mind searched for cracks in the ceiling as it rushed through the possibilities of how it may be all worse, that the people will hate her, for staying away, for not coming back sooner, for her connection to Jaime, because, of that she is aware, while she does not blame Jaime for what Cersei ordered and that Euron carried out, it is very well possible that her people will have different feelings.

_Because they don’t know him. They only know the Kingslayer. They only know him in connection to Cersei’s reign, to that of their children, to Robert’s, to Aerys’s. They don’t know him._

But Brienne does. And if _she_ could change her mind, then so she dares to hope, other people’s minds can be turned another direction, too. Because future does not lie in the past.

_There is only going forward from here, towards an uncertain future._

Yet, even that seems to be all but a fleeting sensation of upset, returning to Brienne when darkness engulfs her in the midst of the night, because then she turns around, and in the movement, she falls into a darkness that used to hide the light that Brienne found anew, sitting in the snow, Jaime’s lips against hers.

Because even darkness can bear light, a silver lining.

And if that is so, even her dark thoughts seem not as mediocre, not as threatening.

What rather has Brienne’s stomach turn into a tight knot is the return to a home no longer containing her father, because that is palpable, inevitable, no uncalled anxiety, but plain, sad fact. She could not attend his burial ceremony, could not bid him farewell, see him one last time, clad in his blue velvet cloak, brush her fingers against his bearded cheek one more time before letting him go. Brienne could not say her goodbyes, could not mutter them into his ear in the hope that they carry across to the Seven Heavens.

Brienne realized that coming closer to Tarth made it increasingly real, seeing blue made it palpable, listening to the familiar sound of water slapping against the wood of the ship. And it hit her right in the gut, taking her breath away, over and over.

Back at Winterfell, the whole severity of the situation only ever hit Brienne once she was alone in her chamber after having received the message, and even then, it was something so abstract, so surreal, that she had a hard time comprehending it. Brienne had a certain image of her father inside her mind. His brought shoulders that could carry her even when she was already too tall for most men to even attempt to lift her. His typical smirk that sparked up his eyes. His big hands that could keep her in place and keep her close as he pulled her to herself one last time in the private space of his chamber before she went out to join Renly’s forces, asking of her to return safely to the isle.

_I kept that promise, true enough, but Father won’t ever know. For that, it took me too long. For that, I came too late._

And it was that image that she upheld over the years of travel and quest of honor that it took Brienne far too long to realize that this image was only fixed inside her head, that something could happen to him that could shake that image, destroy it, shatter it, that her Father wasn’t ever any safer than others were.

Renly died, killed by a shadow. Her father died at the hands of a madman sent by a woman who ascended into madness as she ascended to the Iron Throne. These are things you don’t see coming – until they do, and by that time, it’s far too late already.

_They came rushing in, take your breath away, and leave you suffocating, gasping for air, pleading for a life not yours._

She spent many sleepless nights thinking about what must have been on her father’s mind before Euron Greyjoy and his men destroyed his life, and a part of hers along the way. In the few letters they exchanged, they only ever discussed the necessary, only implied the uncomfortable messages instead of putting them into the ink, though either one on the receiving end still knew of the gravitas of those allusions. Her father _did_ imply that he would like to see her back home, while at the same time pledging to send forces North upon Brienne’s letter to warn him of the White Walker threat. Brienne implied that she could not stay away, that duty compelled it, that she ha a mission to fulfill, while at the same time beckoning him between the written lines that she hoped for him to stay in what she thought of as safety.

_Just that he wasn’t safe. That was all but an illusion._

“My lady seems to be brooding too much again,” she can hear Jaime’s voice ring out, pulling Brienne away from distant, yet incredibly close memories, back to the boat, the railing, the hissing of the water as it pushes past the ship, and Jaime at last.

She didn’t even hear him coming.

Jaime moves away from her back, brushing his left palm over her back once as he leans his right elbow on the railing in a swift motion, the sensation no longer unfamiliar to Brienne, but nonetheless capable of taking her breath away, because she thought she would never have it – until she did.

“I was _not_ brooding, just…,” she means to say, but Jaime interrupts her with a smirk tugging at his lips, “Just silently contemplating.”

Brienne shakes her head with a small grin. “ _Something_ like that.”

“Are you alright?” he then asks, all sarcasm gone, his voice caring, anxious, even.

“Why shouldn’t I be?” Brienne replies, likely too fast to come across as truth.

“For obvious reasons we two know of,” Jaime replies with sincerity, the fingers of his left hand curling a little tighter around the wooden railing.

Brienne gives him a feeble smile. She still has to accustom to the idea that there is someone who knows her the way that Jaime apparently does, which is both frightening as it is relieving, to think, _no, to be certain_ , that there is this one person out in a world so at disarray, who finds you even when you try to hide away.

“I think I am just feeling _that_ … ever so intensely because we are not there yet. Right now, we are still in the limbo before the shores. The waiting is what irritates me most. It leaves me with too much to ponder on. But I am fine, I am,” she assures him.

Jaime nods his head slowly, allowing his gaze to wander to the blue waters around them, shining like the gemstones that earned the isle its name.

“Tarth’s waters are still as blue as I remember,” he sighs, to which Brienne frowns at him. “You were here before? You never told me about that.”

“I wasn’t _on_ the island, but we passed it by on our way to Dorne, when we tried to get Myrcella back to King’s Landing. At first, I thought this was Estermont,” Jaime chuckles softly.

“You should study the maps more,” she snorts.

“I seemingly should,” he snickers. “Though I must say, it was quite a pleasant surprise.”

“Was it?”

“Yes,” he chimes, purposely leaning closer so that his shoulder bumps against hers, his smirk ridiculous to the point that Brienne can’t help but smile along. “Because, when I sailed past, you were instantly on my mind.”

“And _that_ helped?” she snorts, amused, though Brienne hopes that the blush still creeping up her cheeks will be battled by the blue around them.

He moves closer to press a chaste kiss to her lips. “Always.”

While Brienne still takes her time to get used to the fact that they are to each other what they are now, and that they express it in public, finding themselves unable to bother to care about what anyone may think of them.

And that, in itself, was a liberty Brienne didn’t know she needed until she had it. It set her freer than sailing out with her small boat back on Tarth when still young ever did.

There are some many, far too many, moments when Brienne believes that everything is too good to be true, that it is bound to shatter, collapse, that people the likes of her and him do not get such reward, but the thoughts keep vanishing with every kiss, with every tender touch, with ever gesture of affection that she dares to express with lessening hesitance.

“I am curious to see about the Sapphire Isle and actually set foot upon this time,” Jaime comments as he shifts his weight back to lean over the railing.

“There is not much to discover by a man who has seen so many things, so many places, and creatures, I fear. Everything seems rather small once you saw the walking dead and fire-breathing dragons.”

“Oh, I am most certain that there is a lot to discover for me,” Jaime argues with a smirk.

“How can you be so certain of that circumstance?”

“Well, we still have to get to know one another much better. Starting with the place you grew up at seems like a good way to begin that journey of discovery.”

“That sounds almost like a threat,” she huffs.

While Brienne dared to share some of her childhood stories with Jaime over time, she didn’t tell him everything. They lacked the time, and sometimes she still lacks the confidence, because she kept those things hidden beneath a blue armor for so very long that it seems hard, if not impossible, to rip those parts so deeply embedded into her flesh back to the light, outside herself, for him to see, for him to hear.

Though, yet again, the impossible is a concept losing more and more of its power, so perhaps it’s only a matter of time until her flesh will let free those blue gemstones she kept hidden inside her for so very long.

“Well, if I were to discover some blackmail material to use for my personal interest… that would of course be to my greatest pleasure,” Jaime chimes wickedly.

“Blackmail? Me? What for?” she snorts. The older man leans in a little closer again, those movements, too, gaining more and more confidence. Jaime was, surprisingly, very shy at first, too, not because he wanted to hide away, as he told her at Winterfell, but because it was and is new to him as well. And truth be told, Brienne found perhaps greatest reassurance in his apparent lack of confidence every now and then. Because they share in it. She is not the only one. 

“Oh, you know, it’s always a good way to tease affections from you when you are to shy to share,” Jaime chuckles, tapping his index finger against the back of her hand.

“You should not push your luck,” she warns him, if amused.

“Or what? Will you have me banned from the island? You were the one who said that it was alright that I come along,” he argues.

She shrugs. “Well, ever the more a reason not to give me a reason to change my mind.”

Brienne was very surprised, to say the least, when Jaime came to her while still at Winterfell, asking if she were opposed to the idea to have him join her on the way to Tarth. To her, it seemed rather straightforward that, at present, Jaime was needed at the Rock, and that this would be his place to go to.

By the time, the people were still heavily discussing about what wheels to break, which to leave in place, and which to replace, and, of that Brienne was certain, Jaime would be one of those wheels that would have to stay right where it belonged, at the Rock, his ancestral home.

However, when Jaime explained with bowed head that, if she allowed, she would want to see her father’s final resting place – “to both apologize and thank him,” Brienne started to understand that Jaime considered it a debt yet to be paid, and she understood that.

In turn, she didn’t know what to say other than that if he wanted to come along, she would be the last one to tell him no. Brienne considered it her own personal bliss to have him around her a while longer, to catch up on the many occasions they left devoid of the love they felt for one another far longer than they brought themselves to admit it to one another, only echoes filling that desolation until it was filled to the rim amidst smoke and ashes under a silver sky.

As of now, priorities are clear anyway. For Brienne, returning to Tarth was necessary, to help with the reconstruction and reparations, and thereby, so the Seven will, grow into the role of Lady of Tarth, as her father would have wanted it of her. And for Jaime, similar is true, just that it is the West that will require his service to repair the damage done by Ice and Fire. However, since Tyrion is headed to the Rock anyway, it was no bother to leave the duties to Jaime’s younger brother to handle in his absence.

And so, the plan was born that they would go to Tarth together. However, the plans beyond that, they are rather fragile, the finest globe of glass that may break at one too strong touch of the palm. Brienne doesn't dare to think too far yet, rather concerning herself with the immediate, there here and now, which seems far more graspable.

She overheard Tyrion teasing Jaime about political alliances, and how a marriage to Brienne would be “so very favorable to strengthen the West-East alliance,” but that, too, is a thought she does not bother with at this point of time, because it is the immediate future that is Brienne’s major concern now.

And in that immediate future, there is already enough to think about, things bigger than themselves, more important than themselves.

Because a world is waiting to be rebuilt, a world is waiting to be raised anew, from ashes, ice, and blood.

“It’s all so strange as of late,” she exhales, her grimace pensive, hands folded, hanging over the railing. “I know these waters, and yet… I have the feeling that I don’t know where I am.”

“I am pretty sure it will fade away once you step on familiar soil,” he assures her. “All that matters is this: You are home now, Brienne.”

She pulls her hands back to the railing, then, her palms closing tight around the wood. Brienne turns to look at Jaime, her unruly hair, which grew rather long over the course of the Long Night and thereafter, flying into her face, partly obstructing her vision.

“No, _we_ are,” she says, hesitantly, but nonetheless meaning it.

Because _that_ is immediate for her.

He blinks at her, visibly confused. Brienne bites on her lower lip before she goes ahead to explain, “I mean… it _should_ feel like home to you, too. Whatever shape that will be. I would like to think that you come to consider this place your home as well.”

Because if not, there are no immediate futures where Jaime will wind up here again and again.

Because her life will likely remain tied to this place much more than it ever was.

And Brienne would want him to continue to be a part of that immediate future, her future.

“I would very much like that,” Jaime whispers, turning around, his arm brushing against hers. “I think I could get used to that new life rather quickly. Waters have never seemed as blue as they are here.”

He flashes a grin at her. “Almost as blue as your eyes.”

Their kiss tastes of salt water and uncertain futures, but Brienne finds all her dark thoughts swept away, far away, because, for now, he is here, next to her, with her, amidst water shining as blue as sapphires, sailing towards home.

 _Home_.

…

Jaime was very surprised that Brienne suggested that to him to visit her father’s grave even before she went alone to see it. He was convinced that she would want some time alone with him before she could allow Jaime into that circle. However, Brienne appeared to him as tough she actually _wanted_ him to be there as she got ready.

Standing here now in silence by the crypts of her ancestors, remains strange for Jaime, feeling out of place, as though he didn’t belong, a deeply buried fear clutching at his heart that he shouldn’t have come, that he is soiling something that is not the White Cloak, but something far more important to him, because it belongs to Brienne.

It seems to be a strange sort of fortune, if you can call it such, that her ancestors did not raise a great building for their final resting place, but rather chose the places beneath the earth, only leaving a stone gate bearing the Tarth sigil on the corners corner at the entrance. Though even that took considerable damage in the ambush, only half of the gate still standing, the broken stones carried away, and replaced by solid bars of oak, the sigil carved into the wood.

Brienne let him know that the people provisionally redid the gate when they gave her father the last honors and put his body in the crypts.

“They said to me that they felt like it was the least they could do to thank him. Father rescued a lot of them by gathering them at Evenfall Hall. Many more would have died, had he closed the gates.”

The soldiers and able people, led by her father, fought against Euron and his armies, with which he crashed on the isle like a gigantic wave, while those who could raise sword, the old and the young, were all huddled at Evenfall Hall, the walls thankfully only partly having fallen.

Though that did not prevent their lord from falling.

And so, the people tried their best to honor their lord to the best of their abilities, with all that they had left, for the man who proved to be perhaps one of the few good lords the Seven Kingdoms have ever seen, bravely riding into battle against the Iron Fleet with nothing but sword and shield.

At least that is what Jaime heard. He never met the man who raised the woman he fell in love with, but inside his mind, that is how Jaime sees him. Brienne must have gotten that spirit from somewhere, and her father, for all the stories and anecdotes that carried to his ears, seems like the most probable candidate for having given rise that spirit within his child.

Brienne still kneels in front of the crypt’s entrance of stone and wood, if still rather unsteady on her bad leg, Oathkeeper before her as she prays in silence, likely making an unspoken pledge of whatever form it may have.

Jaime doesn’t know exactly what to do, at least he stopped knowing after he helped her kneel down, which Brienne accepted with surprising ease this one time. After that, he only ever found himself standing there, not sure where to leave his hands, what to think, let alone say. Back when Jaime announced that he wanted to see her father’s grave, wanted to say some words, the plan seemed rather solid inside his head. However, here now, with the sky surprisingly blue above their heads, it all seems strange.

Jaime mostly kept in the background ever since arriving on Tarth, enclosed his golden hand with the one made of flesh, kept his mouth closed, and observed. He was pleasantly surprised, if not shocked, that the inhabitants of the isle seemed much more focused on Lord Selwyn Tarth’s daughter than the arrival of the man whose sister ordered for the attack on the Sapphire Isle.

 _I actually expected the pitchforks as a welcome present for me_.

And that prevailed despite the fact that days passed since, and the apparent enthusiasm about Brienne’s return – _which she likely suspected the least, while I was actually pretty sure that this would be the reaction_ –was soon overshadowed by the work ahead of them all, the need to rebuild, grow anew, now that there is a future that needs to be nurtured with a lot of care from now on.

Brienne was a lot quieter upon arrival as well. Both were relieved that the island did not take as much damage as they feared while still at Winterfell. In the messages that reached them about the fate of the isle, it seemed as though it was just a pile of rubble and ash now. Seemingly, the fact that Euron was meant to bring the Golden Company to the capitol fast led to a less destructive raid on the island, which was nevertheless devastating, without a doubt.

The first night they spent on the isle, the two slept in Brienne’s bed from childhood. She said to Jaime she could not even begin to imagine to sleep in her father’s chambers now. They barely spoke, only ever lied on the sheets, facing one another, trying to accustom, to arrive.

And now, they have arrived, and Jaime is not yet sure how to handle all this. At some point, he was more prepared for opposition than he was for being granted guest right in this of all places. Jaime is far more accustomed to misgiving than to acceptance. He had the latter only so few times that it hit him each time, most prominently once he comprehended that Brienne accepted him, the whole of him, with all of his mistakes, with all his crimes, the pieces missing, his imperfection.

Jaime watches as Brienne suddenly, if slowly, straightens back up, a small grunt falling from her lips as she balances. He has a hand to her back to steady her if need be, but Oathkeeper serves just fine to keep her upright.

 _As it has done for such a long time now already_.

“Can I ask you a question?” Brienne asks, still looking at the crypt before them instead of facing in Jaime’s direction, keeping her face, her expression locked away from him.

“Why, of course,” he answers with a frown, his hand ghosting over her back.

“When your father died, and you stood by his body, what did you feel?”

Jaime pauses for a moment. He can't remember the last time someone asked him about his grief for his father. Cersei only ever blamed him for the stupidity of letting Tyrion escape, which resulted in him assassinating Tywin Lannister. Tyrion, while as of late showing more understanding for Jaime blaming him for that act, didn't or didn’t dare to ask him about his feelings for their father. Somehow, Jaime only ever felt those things inside of him, but didn’t let them out, didn’t verbalize them. 

He blinks, trying to gather his thoughts. “Frankly speaking… foremost, I was angry, with myself.”

“For setting Tyrion free?” she asks, still not looking at him.

“For not having seen that coming. For not having been able to prevent any of this from happening. By the time I let Tyrion go, everything was already far too late. I tried to intervene before. I tried to convince Father to spare my brother’s life and let him join the men on the Wall. It would have been easy enough to get him off the usual tracks going from there, and then to some safe place. I’d spoken to Lord Varys before, and he agreed that this would be easiest option. There would have been good ways to have him disappear on the way North.”

“But your brother had his own plans,” Brienne exhales.

“And for that I wanted to knock him down the stairs he was meant to take to gain his freedom,” Jaime huffs, frustration cutting right through him even now. “Because he had to take one last strike at Father’s legacy. Because revenge was still far too important for my family…”

_But not for me. I don’t care about revenge._

“But how did you feel about _your father_?” Brienne questions again.

Jaime wets his lips, blinking. “I was frustrated with him. I was angry with him about as much as I was angry with Tyrion, Cersei, and myself. Father’s death meant instability. It meant danger to my family. My father was no good man. He was a horrible person who did despicable things or let them be carried out for his own agendas. So, as a person, I could not really miss him. Even before Tyrion told me why he killed him… I _understood_ it. I lived with that man, and I saw him treat my brother the way he did. It made sense to me, it always did.”

He shakes his head, surprising himself with how easy those words roll from his tongue now.  

“You see,” he goes on. “My father was a good tactician, always was. He knew when to stand down, he knew when to make a move. While he never mastered the arts of reading his own children, he was good at reading people _not_ his family. To me, that made it sometimes rather easy to talk to him. It made him _readable_ in that way. I knew that I had to use certain words, make certain threats, to get certain results. That was… strangely reassuring, to know that I could get this influential man there, sometimes, at least. At the same time, my father’s presence gave me a sense of… _security_. That the heritage I denied was safe, persevered at the Rock. That there was… a back-up for my failures, for all our mistakes. And when I realized that this was gone, I was angry and… _scared_. Scared that people would now die who wouldn’t have under his watch, and that I could not help it anymore.”

Brienne turns her head in his direction, and while she keeps her big blue eyes averted, still, he knows that she is listening, understanding those things that most people don’t even seem to get. How can you can love a man like his father was, how you can feel security at the hands of one of the most dangerous patriarchs the Seven Kingdoms have ever seen. But Brienne gets it, because she gets him.

_However she does it, because I have no clue. I just know that she does._

 “What I dreaded about his death most was that it put people in danger I wanted to know protected. He embodied danger to most other people, but to me, in part at least, he meant safety, safety for the people I loved. And suddenly, that was gone,” he admits.

“So, did you feel sad for losing him?” she asks quietly.

“Truth be told… _yes_. And that even though he was a monster like most others, if not worse. But in the end… he was my father, still. And I had my part in it that he lost his life because of choices I made,” he answers.

Brienne nods her head slowly, glancing back at the entrance of the crypt. “When the message reached us that my father was dead… and I sat in my chamber, reading the letter over and over… I was angry with him. I was furious. _How dare he die_? was the one thing my mind kept screaming. _How dare he leave me_? I thought over and over, as though that would change anything. I imagined so many scenarios where I was sure that my father went down fighting, trying to protect the people, because that is what he has always done. And I was frustrated with him for doing that… even though I would have done it the same way.”

Jaime says nothing, just stands there, listens, waits for her to pour out the bad blood she just let him shed. Because it eats you alive otherwise, and he can’t have that consume her. 

“Once I realized that I was angry with him when I should just mourn his loss, I felt so bad about myself, I felt so guilty, even more so than I felt angry with myself for not having seen that coming, for not having had a chance to prevent all that. Because nothing is more hateful than failing to protect the ones you love,” Brienne goes on, voice shaking, her fingers curling tightly around Oathkeeper.

“Sadly, feelings come and go like the blue sea. It’s past our control sometimes. Oftentimes, even,” Jaime whispers, hoping to offer some solace. “We can’t help but feel them when they sweep us off our feet.”

“… Sometimes I just wished I wouldn’t feel that. I can very well endure pain. I would have my legs both broken a hundred times over, if only… _not_ to feel that, but I know it makes no difference. Because the only way that pain wasn’t there would be that he’d come back to life. And he won’t.”

“Sadly, no. The dead are now dead most certainly.”

“… Thank you for sharing that with me, by the way,” she adds silently. “It helps to know that I am not the only one who has those feelings, those thoughts. Because I, too, dreaded the loss of safety with my father alongside my grief over his loss. And it’s such a shameful thing to admit, is it not?”

She turns to face him, and her big blue eyes are full of hurt, glassy, shining like the most brilliant sapphires Jaime ever set eyes upon, but the pain pooling out of them makes his stomach turn, knocking the air out of him.

Jaime wished he could control the sea, if only to keep the agony out of her eyes, out of her, but he can’t. There is nothing Jaime can do to undo it, because past is carved into oak now.

The one thing he can do is step closer, stand by her side, glancing at the entrance, drape his arm around her frame and pull her to him, to let her know that she is not alone in the deep blue sea of her emotions.

“No, that’s not shameful at all,” he whispers. “You are allowed to feel that way because those are your feelings. Who is there to tell you that they are not yours to have?”

“I always hoped he’d die of old age, you know? I didn’t want a hero’s death for him, even though he was one to me since I was all but a girl,” Brienne says, pursing her lips towards the end, as though she tried to contain the small mewl of pain threatening to jump into the world and stay.

“It appears that we don't get served the deaths we’d want or deserve. If so, I would long since have died a painful death, I assume. And yet, here we are, bound to live a life that is, for all it seems, supposed to last a while longer,” Jaime tells her, holding on a little tighter. “So, the best we can do is try to live the life… he is no longer granted.”

Brienne nods her head slowly. “That has a nice ring to it. I believe that my father would have liked that… I hope.”

“I am actually rather certain. He only ever wanted the best for his daughter, I am sure. And while I can’t seem to imagine that he would have approved of her falling for the Kingslayer of all people… in the _entire_ world, I want to believe that he is happy for you so long you are. _Most_ fathers actually want that foremost, that their children are happy and safe. That they live,” he tells her.

“Not yours?” she asks, looking at him.

“He was more concerned that we achieve greatness, not happiness,” Jaime explains.

Though perhaps that is actually the irony in it all: While Tywin Lannister, for all his life, was chasing greatness, was chasing riches and an empire meant to last a thousand years through his children, neglecting all happiness, all kindness, all goodness, believing it nothing more than a weakness, he didn’t see that there lies greatness in happiness.

“But I suppose that what matters in the end is… what _we_ want for our lives,” Jaime concludes.

“You are probably right,” Brienne mutters, something shifting in her posture, in her being, until he can spot something familiar as she looks back at him, a certainty washing even the blue pain away, if only partly. “We have to move forward. That is the only way now, the only direction.”

“Indeed.”

He is surprised when he feels her pressing a chaste kiss to the corner of his mouth, a quick brush of the lips, an almost not palpable brush of her fingers against his own, before she turns around abruptly, eyes set on the immediate future ahead, Evenfall Hall.

Jaime steps over to the wooden beam, brushes the fingers of his left hand over the freshly engraved sigil. “I am sorry for the destiny you had to suffer at my sister’s hands. But of that one thing I can assure you, my lord, I will do whatever is within my powers to keep your daughter safe and happy. I swear it,” he whispers.

“Jaime? Are you coming?” she calls out to him, only now realizing that he didn’t follow her steps. Jaime grins, knocking against the oak one more time before pushing away from the crypt, away from the past, and heads towards the future.

“On my way, my lady!” he calls out, before speeding up to meet up with Brienne, and the two walk back while walking forward, backed up by stone and oak, a legacy held up by a father’s love, a lord’s devotion, and a brightly blue sky above them, announcing a new day, and perhaps a new age, too.

* * *

 

Jaime leans against the wall outside Brienne’s chamber with a grin on his lips. Brienne has been fussing all morning long. Today is the first time that she will hold council, meet up with the locals to discuss the exact plans on the reconstruction still to be done, just like this will be the meeting meant to determine her position in all this. It came as a surprise to some, but not to Jaime.

Brienne of Tarth is singular in that way, _and many other_. Making politics like any other lord or lady would do it would have been far more unlike her than would have been for Brienne to never pick up the sword again.

“I will not demand trust from the people I yet have to prove myself to,” is what she told the advisors when the topic arose. “It’s a truce I want with my people, and that is only achieved through trust, a trust I have yet to earn to in order to harvest it.”

She said to Jaime in private that the meeting is a getting to know for her foremost. The people put faith in her father to keep things in order, keep the wheels turning, and do so justly. As she told the baffled advisors, she cannot demand that trust without having earned it, so Brienne believes it best achieved by taking their words into consideration to find a way to rebuild what was destroyed, and bring forth life where death prevailed, _together_.

“The Dragon Queen always said that she meant to destroy the wheel. I am not too sure that this is what the people here want, but that doesn’t mean I cannot try to spin it another way, see what becomes of it.”

However, no matter how calm Brienne has been while announcing that plan of hers, she has been an exposed nerve ever since Brienne opened her eyes today. Jaime had to talk to the maids and cooks about three times by now, only just to ensure that everyone will have enough food and beverage for when they arrive here for the council meeting.

“I should have written a speech, maybe. I am not good with words. Why didn’t I think of that sooner? Seven Hells!” he can hear her fuss even though the closed door as she still gets changed. Jaime leans against the wall outside, listening to her with a mixture of annoyance and amusement.

“You will do just fine,” he assures her, as he has done what feels like a hundred times by now.

“How would you know? I have never served in such a function.”

“You advised Lady Sansa for as long as you were at Winterfell. You spoke on the war council when we discussed tactics. You even told the Dragon Queen that her strategy was too rash and may put us at a tactical disadvantage. And trust me in this, if you had made a fool of yourself on any of those occasions, there would not have been a single man who would have ridden behind you into battle against the living dead. People believed in the tactic you proposed and how you proposed it. And if you can bring people to march behind you to sure death, you can likely handle a council meeting with some farmers and guild masters,” he tells her, turning slightly towards the door, astonished when there is a moment of silence from the other side. He seemingly got her by surprise with the sincerity that statement came with.

_Though it is simply the truth._

Jaime has seen the men who rode behind her, to a battle that meant the death of many and the survival of few. And yet they cried their battle cries, and yet they shouted, and yet the pushed their horses, following that woman with armor, unknighted and yet a knight in the truest sense, right into battle, right into the army of the dead, right into death itself.

_It’s almost humorous to think that you are the only one who didn’t understand that yet, Brienne._

“… But I have more clues about war tactics than I have about politics,” she argues then anyway. Jaime groans, twisting back against the wall, toying with hem of his tunic.

“Which is why you have counsellors, wench. And I am there, too. While I may not be the best political agent myself, I heard them talk _once or twice_ while at the Red Keep for some many years. _Kings_ , even. Imagine that!” he laughs.

“ _Now_ you are just making fun of me!”

“That would be the furthest thing from my thoughts, my lady,” he chimes, taking his dear fun in that anyway. With times still so severe, so close to the verge of breaking apart with food and beverage getting scarcer and scarcer as the soil is still too chilled from the great winter that left fast, but nonetheless hit the lands at full force, enjoying the light moments is almost necessary.

“You are _most definitely_ making fun of me.”

He snickers. “Maybe a bit.”

“Well, you can laugh it up for as long as you can. I can already vividly imagine how you will struggle when you take up on the duties awaiting you at the Rock,” she pouts. Jaime can hear her pacing again, and the maid helping her get changed chasing after he with a squeal. That same procedure repeated itself a number of times by now, never failing to amuse Jaime.

A woman who is as certain as Brienne is with sword and shield seems almost ridiculously out of place when she is supposed to use nothing but words. However, Jaime only ever finds that ridiculous because he knows she will not fail.

He is good at reading people, he observed the locals, the advisors. There is far less misgiving than Brienne seems to see it flit across the walls of Evenfall Hall.

_The greatest enemy of the Lady of Tarth is… the Lady of Tarth._

“I have Tyrion to do the thinking for me. I just have to sound smart and look good,” Jaime argues, crossing his arms over his chest.

“Have you heard of him yet as to how the negotiations go?” Brienne then asks, seemingly wanting to distract herself from the _immediate threat_ for a moment.

“A raven arrived this morning. In the message, Tyrion wrote that they are still debating over territories. The usual business.”

“If things go on at this rate, people will not know if they belong to West, East, North, or South,” Brienne huffs, and Jaime could not agree more. Though he was sure that this verbal battle would remain as messy as it is, because politics are never easy.

“Maybe we should have waited a while longer before heading here, if only so you could tell them about their folly,” he laughs.

“I said it before, I am saying it again: So long they make a just decision, I will not oppose it. Tyrion serves your interest there, and I believe that will be similar to mine,” Brienne tells him through closed doors.

“You put a lot of faith in the two fools of Lannister brothers,” he snorts.

“You tell me about it,” she huffs.

“Are you anywhere near done yet?” he sighs.

“Almost.”

“Seven Hells, Brienne. The people know you already. Not much sense in hiding away, is there?” Jaime argues, pushing away from the wall to position himself in front of the wooden door again.

“I am _not_ hiding away. I just want to do this properly, I want to prepare the best I can,” she argues, and yes, she is back to running and being chased by the poor maid.

“The clothes will not make that difference,” Jaime argues. “You will.”

“Oh, shush now!”

“Did you just shush me?!”

“Yes.”

“How dare you?” he calls out in faux exasperation.

“I have any right to do such.”

“Do you? By what rights?”

Jaime walks inside without further prelude. He keeps standing in the archway leading into the chamber, his eyes locking instantly with Brienne’s. 

While Jaime has seen her in dress before, he is still rather taken aback how different yet familiar Brienne looks. Because this dress is actually tailored to her body, much in contrast to the pink rag they made her wear in Harrenhal. Still, it is much more classical in cut than was the dress she wore to Joffrey’s and Margaery’s wedding, the skirt flowing around her long legs, the bodice bearing a small V-shape to make visible the form she normally hides underneath straight-cut tunics and vests, a simple, modest cleavage with fine embroidery, into which small sapphires are sewn into the fine lines of thread forming flowers.  

Surely, it does not make a beauty of her in the classical sense, but Jaime still finds his breath hitching for a moment or two, because, while so unfamiliar, while so very strange, right at this moment, Brienne looks like this dress belongs to her, bringing to the light something that is normally hidden behind the blue steel of her armor.

Jaime turns to the young maid standing behind the tall Lady of Tarth, “You can leave us now. I am taking it from here.”

“As you will, Ser Jaime,” the young girl says, nodding her head, then turning back to Brienne. “My lady.”

“Thank you for your help,” Brienne tells her. “And sorry for… the walking around.”

“Always at your service.” The maid bows once before walking past Jaime and quickly disappearing down the hallways. Jaime closes the door behind her, making a first step inside.

“If you want to joke, now is your last chance, I warn you. As I said, I want to do this properly. Surely, the people know that I normally prefer chainmail and breeches, but I thought it could not harm to stick to conventions at an unconventional time such as this. If that makes me look ridiculous, then so it does,” Brienne says defensively, seemingly trying to dodge a blow she believes to come her way before it is even executed.

 _Little does she know_ …

“It doesn’t make you look ridiculous at all,” he argues, stepping closer. “The dress suits you fine.”

She looks at him, rather stunned.

 _You didn’t see that blow coming, did you, wench_?

“The blue goes well with your eyes,” Jaime goes on, the message simple, an yet, almost knocking her off her feet as her eyes search him and find him.

Brienne smiles at him uncertainly, a faint blush creeping over her face. Jaime can’t help but chuckle as she turns around, hobbles up to the chair set by the bed to pick up the red Lannister belt along with the sword with a lion for a pommel. She buckles Oathkeeper around her waist, looking at once so much more at ease with herself now that she has something familiar to accompany the new.

“While I want to stick to convention with the dress, it can’t harm to keep them aware of how unconventional Lord Selwyn’s daughter will forever be,” she comments. “To give a fair warning, or reminder… in case they recall the girl who used to run around with wooden sword and short-cropped hair to beat around the boys who teased her so.”

“You know, I have to correct myself,” Jaime then says. Brienne blinks at him.

“ _Now_ you look like a true heiress of the Sapphire Isle,” Jaime says with a grin. “Anyone who doesn’t see that is either blind or a fool… or both.”

“Are you just saying that to calm me?”

“I am just stating the truth.”

“And you say so, priding yourself to be a good liar thanks to the nature of your birth?” she snorts.

Jaime covers the last distance between them, hooking his index finger through the belt to pull her to him, to his lips, kissing her deeply, not really surprised that she moves in accordance almost immediately, the touches long since familiar to her by now.

“I say so, priding myself knowing the truth. And now be honest with yourself, can those lips lie, my lady?”

She rolls her big blue eyes at him, some of the nervousness seeping out of her as she lets herself be reassured by the familiar closeness.

Jaime kisses her again, running his right arm over her side, quite enjoying to find exposed what is normally hidden beneath thick coats and quilted tunics, the shape of her, which he can trace, feel, call his, his, his.

 _Maybe I can convince her of wearing that dress in private more often, too_ , Jaime thinks to himself with a mixture of amusement and anticipation.

While Jaime doesn’t need her in a dress to know that he loves her, wants her, needs her, it is nonetheless a bit of a thrill, to find her exposed as she keeps changing, growing.

He is pulled out of his thoughts when Brienne pushes away from him, and disappointment soon takes the place of the thrill. “That was enough for now. We have other things to focus on.”

Jaime teasingly pulls her to himself by the belt again. “But we surely have some spare time to kiss some … a bit _more_ perhaps.”

“It took forever to arrange the dress, I won’t have you mess with it,” she says, pointing her index finger at him. The blush on her cheeks is oh so rewarding nevertheless, _or perhaps ever the more_. While they didn’t bed, their exchanges of affection have been gaining in heat and daring as of late.

“It may calm you,” he laughs.

“No to that,” she says, removing his hand from her belt.

Jaime lets out a sigh. “As my lady commands. See? That is why I hate politics, they keep you away from the good things far too often. But you tell me, will I get a reward for being such a good counsellor?”

“For _that_ , you would yet have to prove yourself as such,” she huffs.

“Well, I may show you how convincing works. You will need to master the arts in the political realm, my lady.”

She shakes her head, starting towards the door. Jaime watches her walk. While still with a limp, Jaime can't help but note the strength in her uneven steps.

Though Brienne seemingly still takes her time to see through her sapphire eyes what Jaime long since caught, because when he watches her, he sees the future of the isle, the future Lady of Tarth.

 _A true heiress of the Sapphire Isle indeed_.

* * *

 

Brienne enjoys the crisp evening air, which is already starting to get cold in preparation for the nearing night, making a mess not just of her hair, _but also Jaime’s, at least_ , as they walk along the coastline. They have done that time and time again ever since the two came to Tarth. And Brienne must say, she relishes the ease of those evenings, what seems like a small ritual of their own already.

A strange sort of normalcy in their impossible life.

The first council meeting went surprisingly well, as far as Brienne can judge. Admittedly, she was rather glad that Jaime was around – and that the people even listened to what he had to say. Voices rose about what Cersei did when she sent Euron to Tarth, and that was in itself frightening, not just for her, but Jaime.

While Jaime joked about it that he also faced Brandon Stark after he pushed him out a window, and that thus handling some angry farmers should be the least of his problems, after all, “the lad has magical powers. Gods know what he could have done with them if he wanted to see me harmed!” Brienne could still sense that Jaime was far from calm.

Already back when encountering Bran, she could see the guilt washing through him, the uncertainty, and yet the resolve to face the young man whose ability to walk he took after a “foolish mistake,” in the vain hope to have his former lover and children protected.

Thence, the shock was great when Jaime had to learn that the boy only ever shrugged at him, as though it meant nothing, as though this sin was beyond irredeemable. Bran only ever told him that he did what was necessary to fulfill his destiny, and thereby create a chance for them to intervene with fate itself, and stop the White Walkers from marching.

“By taking my legs, you gave me wings, so I could fly and see ahead of time itself. We all are no more than chess pieces in the great game, and you made the moves that were chosen for you by powers beyond everyone’s reach. Whatever guilt you may feel, that is up to you to shoulder, but the time will come when you will know that the debt is paid. Though, of that I can assure you, it is not me you owe this debt to,” was the one cryptic message the dark-haired lad gave him. When Jaime asked whom he owed the debt to, the boy only ever looked at him blankly and said that he will know once time arises.

However, looking at the situation now, with quite a few locals having misgivings towards “the Kingslayer,” whom some still suspect to have to do with the ambush on the isle, Brienne is rather glad to have the actual confrontation. And Jaime told her after the meeting the very same: “I rather have them yell to my face than whisper behind my back.”

To her understanding, it is better to have those confrontations during a council rather than having them boil over the years until the infection cannot be stopped from spreading anymore. During the meeting, Brienne told them what she already told Jaime – that he is not to blame for the Queen’s decisions, that it was not his doing, and that they should see that thanks to Jaime, reparations were already done, because they came here with help from the Rock to aid in the reconstruction still going on at this point of time.

And she meant it, every word of it, thereby surprising herself with the strength the statement came with, after she struggled to even find her voice to greet them formally.

“Would you rather deny the hand extended to you in support or take it and offer forgiveness in turn, good man? Because I cannot imagine that the children now alive and still to come to live here on the isle can feed off of pride alone. They will starve on hatred, _but_ they can feed off of the fruits of alliances,” is what she told one of the guild masters who was rather outspoken about the ambush and what he perceived as Jaime’s involvement in it. Though, to her great surprise, the guild master was eventually one to agree. While Brienne does not pride herself as being a persuasive person, she is relieved that she seemingly struck the right tune after all.

“Oh, I forgot to tell you something,” Jaime says with a smirk, pulling Brienne back to the shore, which glistens in dark blue, only the tips of the waves in a lighter color, shining like blue crystals in the distance.

“And what would that be?” Brienne asks, pushing one particularly stubborn strand of hair out of her face.

“The council has ruled at last,” Jaime announces theatrically. “The raven reached us today.”

Brienne makes a face. “And you tell me that _only now_?”

Jaime only ever shrugs his shoulders with a grin. “We had so much to do today, I simply forgot.”

“You forgot. _Right_ ,” she snorts, shaking her head. Brienne knows she should be used to his antics by now, but they never fail to annoy her anyway. “So? Who sits the Iron Throne now? Once they find a way to make use of that lump of metal that remained of it? Let me guess, the Dragon Queen, right?”

They discussed time and time again what the most likely outcome is going to be. How it may be Tyrion as the one true Hand of the Realm, not of royal blood, but meant to make decisions for the better of the realm anyway, Brienne went on to tease Jaime about how he may still succeed to the honor of becoming the next King by line of succession, but Daenerys Targaryen was the candidate they came back to again and again, reckoning that for all the speeches she gave before, and for all that was narrated to them, the Dragon Queen has most interest in the throne she considers her birthright.

“Surprisingly… _not_ ,” Jaime says, which does indeed shock her.

“Really?” Brienne gapes. “I thought that this was why she came here in the first place.”

“And that was what drove her across the Narrow Sea most certainly, but Tyrion said that she had a change of heart,” Jaime tells her.

“Change of heart?” Brienne repeats, still finding it hard to grasp. “So does she agree to have someone rule beside her? Or in her stead? Is Tyrion her proxy now?”

“No. She is to return to Essos.”

Brienne blinks. Even if she could bring herself to believe that the Dragon Queen may agree to perhaps not being the only ruler, Brienne was rather convinced that she would not give up on rule in some capacity, after she lost all of her dragons in the battle against the White Walkers, after all she undertook, after she fought for that title so very long.

“Why so?” he asks.

“To do what you also did,” Jaime replies, looking out on the blue sea ahead of them. “To go home.”

“But… Westeros is her home,” she argues.

“Daenerys seemingly doesn’t consider it as such. She mentioned to Tyrion that her true home is the place where she grew up at, or so he wrote, and wasn't born at… and that is Essos, not Westeros,” Jaime explains, his own surprise still evident in his voice.

“And is there a certain reason why she changed her mind – other than a wish to go home? Because one does not exclude the other,” Brienne ponders.

“She is to have a child, Jon Snow’s… _Aegon Targaryen’s_ … whatever name you choose now. I will be the last to judge on the matter of their… _relations_ , as you know, but it seems to be true that from their union a child is to be born. That seemingly made Daenerys change her mind rather quickly towards the end of the negotiations. Little did the man know that he would not pledge his cause to this queen in the end after all, but to his child yet to be born.”

“Though he will never see it grow up,” Brienne mutters.

Jon Snow died as he lived, a warrior, a hero for most, likely soon to be a legend for many, but still as human and fallible as any other, _but legends don’t care about that_. With his last breath, he achieved the impossible, and shoved a sword through the Night’s King’s back, when the creature already thought to be victor after mortally wounding the former Lord Commander, King in the North, and heir to the Iron Throne by virtue of his hidden noble birth.

And with the Night’s King, all others fell, too.

“No, he won’t. But… he fathered a child after all,” Jaime agrees solemnly. He can't say that he got along with the dolt lad too well, Jon was far too much like his actual _uncle_ in Jaime’s opinion, but as they joined a common cause, they found a common ground, too.

And once it came to light who Jon was by virtue of his brith, Jaime rather felt sympathy for a man who had to realize that the woman he fell for was closer to his blood than anyone ever would have guessed, that fire ran in both their veins, and how that made them withdraw from each other more and more, though, for all Jaime could judge, they simply fell for one another and couldn’t stop loving one another even as distance grew and the Long Night came to tear them apart. And truly, Jaime couldn’t ever blame someone for _that_ condition. He knows it all too well, knows its dangers, its pitfalls, its glory, and its shame.

“So… she gives up all political say here to go back?” Brienne asks.

“I was surprised, too, but it seems to be the case. Don't ask me. For all I heard, she is more effective over there. The people love their Queen, khaleesi, Mhysa. Letters reached her that the cities she took are at chaos still, and that she now has to build the wheel she ripped out of the landscapes… Furthermore, the Dothraki don't like the weather anyway. It’s better if they headed home, as far as I am concerned,” Jaime answers.

They don’t need pillagers and rapists. And while some proved to be good soldiers, able men, it seems to run in their blood, and their blood runs cold, is not built for Winter waiting to be taken over by a hesitant Spring.

“So… who is to rule, then? Jon Snow would have been rightful heir to the throne, as son of Lyanna Stark and Rhaegar Targaryen, had he lived beyond the Long Night. Daenerys Targaryen goes back to Essos to be Queen there. Gendry is dead, too, if they had followed the Baratheon line. So, who is supposed to sit the Throne?”

“No one,” is the simply reply.

“No one,” Brienne repeats.

“Well, technically, _more_ than one, but it’s no longer a Game of Thrones. The council has ruled that we will have _Wardens_ for the Realm instead,” Jaime explains. “Thereby establishing that very council, once it took its final shape as the Great Council of the Realm.”

He couldn’t believe it when he read it, so Jaime had to read over and over, making sure that he did not just misinterpret the letters in front of him.

But that is what it is, what he said more or less as a joke, a faint hope perhaps, is now real.

 _Who could have guessed_?

“And who will succeed to the honor?” Brienne questions.

“Sansa Stark for the North. Samwell Tarly for the Reach. The Eyrie will have the right and duty to elect their own council and warden because Robyn Arryn died, leaving no one in charge of the royal house, its armies and treasures. Same is true for the regions around Harrenhal. Ser Davos will be sent there to overlook the council formation and will serve as political advisor in those regions, by the rivers. The crownlands will share in a similar fate, though arrangements were made that all regions will have to help rebuild the crownlands after they were blown up to destroy White Walkers there. It will supposedly be the place of the wardens’ Great Council once it is rebuilt, but no warden is supposed to hold these lands. The Rock will remain in Lannister hand because we have the resources. Dorne will share in the destiny of the Eyrie and surrounding areas. Pyke will remain in Theon’s hands, until Yara’s child comes of age…,” Jaime recounts.

He shakes his head, the crisp air of the nearing night brushing against his face. Jaime only ever heard of it from Theon while still at Winterfell, that Euron Greyjoy did even more despicable things than the ones he knew of, and raped his own niece to get an heir, in case Cersei would not provide for it. The child was born, but the mother died before Theon and his men managed to wrestle her from their uncle’s clutches. And now it is up to a man who can never have children of his own after his castration to raise the child of the woman he loved like no other, and would have died for to rescue, if only they had not come too late.

Though perhaps it is a wink of fate that the child born was a daughter, so that this part of her mother’s legacy will live on in the Iron Islands after all.

“And what of the Stormlands?” Brienne asks, chewing on her lower lip.

Jaime holds out a small scroll to her. “They do suggest that you may want to consider becoming Warden of the Stormlands, actually.”

“Now you are making fun of me,” she huffs, snatching the scroll from him.

“Formal proposal, I assure you,” Jaime chimes. Brienne unrolls the parchment, her eyes skimming over the page, only to go through it again and again, which only ever amuses Jaime, who has a hard time containing the laughter.

“ _That_ is insane,” Brienne argues, shaking her head. “I hardly managed to establish myself as Lady of Tarth by this point of time. And now they think that I can just… be a Warden for all of the Stormlands?”

“This is no more insane than any of this is, but truth be told, I find that much more reasonable than having a Southern king rule the North, a Northern king rule the South, or some stranger who has never known or heard of politics take a seat on the Great Council to decide over the fate of the East,” Jaime argues. “I suppose you just left a lasting impression during the war council.”

“I say it again, this is madness,” Brienne grumbles, shaking her head.

“Oh, fret not. At least we share in the same fate,” Jaime argues with a grin, giving her shoulder a gentle squeeze, before he goes on. “In any case… The treaties will be put in place once the other wardens have been elected. From that, so the Gods will, a Great Council will form and meet at the capitol regularly to discuss the reconstruction, which is, _quite obviously_ , the one thing that is of interest to all of us after the Long Night.”

“So, you will be Warden of the Western regions, while I may be one of the East.”

Jaime nods. “It appears so.”

“And what of Tyrion?” Brienne asks with a frown.

“Well, he will remain as the _Hand of the Realm_ , and you bet he loves that title already. He already signed the scroll like that. He is to lead discussions, as he has proven to be good of during the meeting by the Dragonpit already,” Jaime explains

“But he will be no warden?” she asks.

“No, but close enough. We agreed by now that he will be acting as my proxy at the Rock during my absence,” Jaime replies.

“I have proposed to be my older brother’s Hand, and that was something most seemed to agree with. After all, you were in dire need of one,” the letter said, which only had Jaime chuckle in amusement as he skimmed through the pages.

“Well, you will not be absent from the Rock forever, will you? Now that you got formally elected for the Great Council,” Brienne argues, curling her lips into an even deeper frown.

They come to a halt, the blue waters rushing behind them, the sky turning darker by the second passing.

“Certainly not, but… as it appears, I have duties to fulfill elsewhere, too,” Jaime says to her.

“Are you undergoing a journey you forgot to mention to me, just like that formal letter, telling me about my fate?” Brienne huffs.

“Not a _journey_ , really,” Jaime replies with a smirk that suddenly seems rather uncertain, which only ever irritates Brienne.

Just what is up with him tonight?

“Why?” she asks, her tone demanding.

_If there is something you want to tell me, you should tell me now. You know me, Jaime, better than most._

“Because my wish would be to stay here.”

“Here as in… Tarth.” Brienne blinks.

They didn’t talk about those future plans still ahead of them. They pushed it further and further away, relished the present, stole private moments for themselves, away from the future, to keep in the present. In fact, the council heavily debating proved to be a welcome excuse so that the two didn't have to face the big questions, the uncomfortable ones, of what is going to be.

They didn’t want to break that globe of glass, and hoped that they would have more time to steal away, if only for a while.

“Yes,” Jaime answers.

“Why so?” Brienne asks, her voice catching in her throat.

“Because _you_ need to stay here. As Lady of Tarth and supposedly future Warden of the Stormlands. You have no luxury of a proxy, while I do. So it seems rather straightforward to me that if we want to make wise decisions regarding the future, me staying here while having Tyrion serve in my interest would benefit us all,” Jaime replies. Brienne can do nothing much but stare at him, running her fingers through her hair to finally get a clear view at him, so to be sure that she is not just imagining all this.

“We never talked about… how we want to go about all this,” Brienne mutters hesitantly, her hand still resting on the back of her head.

“I know, but… I would hereby like to make a proposal as to how _I_ would like to build our future. There are two questions that necessitate that proposal,” he says, moving far more rigid than his speech would give away.

“Which would be?” Brienne asks quietly, the noises all around her fading, even the crushing of the blue waves standing still, freezing into sapphires.

“First, if the Lady of Tarth could live with such an arrangement.”

“… And the other?”

“Do you want to be my wife?”

Brienne stands perfectly still, and the world along with her. There is no doubt in her that he means the words he says, she can see it in his eyes, she can hear it in his voice, but her mind cannot believe, cannot even begin to fathom that this is the cosmos residing within the globe of glass they are to uphold.

“J, Jaime, I…,” she stutters helplessly, her mind adrift.

The uncertainty of his movements starts to ebb into his voice as he goes on rather nervously, “I mean… You don’t have to answer at once. As I said, it is a proposal… in the truest sense of the term. It’s just… that is what I would want to have for a future, and the question now is if you…”

He is surprised when she grabs his left arm, her fingers sliding down until they enclose his.

“Jaime?”

“Yes?”

“I do.”

The waves rush, break by the shore, painting black stone white and blue, leaving glistening sapphires on the surface as the moon starts to break through the clouds, shines light on a distant future now incredibly close as lips meet and promises are made.


	3. Obsidian

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jaime and Brienne recall the immediate past of their wedding feast. 
> 
> Thereby, the encounter both the bliss and the fears that the future ahead of them still holds. 
> 
> But they have each other to hold on to even in that darkness.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello everyone, thank you so much for all those lovely comments. You make me do wacky dancing, you guys. ♥
> 
> So, now we are back on the corresponding day and theme, obsidian being the gemstone of the day. 
> 
> I hope you will enjoy this chapter.
> 
> Much love! ♥♥♥

The night is so dark that Jaime can barely make out the outlines of the chamber, himself, and Brienne lying beside him, if not for the warmth she emits and the rhythmical sound of her breath assuring him of her presence beside him.

He spent many nights sleeping beside her by now. After they confessed their love for one another underneath a silver sky, it seemed almost natural that they shared a bed. Even though they didn't share it in _that_ way at that point of time, only ever daring to exchange heated kisses _and a bit more_ , exploring each other’s bodies hesitantly, if with growing need for the other person’s shapes hidden beneath layers of cotton and leather. And strangely so, Jaime had to realize, it was natural, when it was not at all for him while he was still with Cersei. Certainly, once she was Queen, they felt confident enough to no longer hide away, or so she had him believe, because going back now, Jaime starts to believe that it served Cersei’s ego far more than it ever served their love, or what had remained of it by the time they reunited after the Riverrun Siege.

However, lying next to Brienne, sharing bed with her, listening to her breath evening out, it was natural to him even before they confessed their love to one another. Before that day painted in silver light, Jaime partly considered it his duty. Once all gathered for battle, with Wildlings and Dothraki screamers getting drunk far too close to where they had their chambers in the North, Jaime wanted to be sure to eliminate at least that one danger, even in the wake of the great danger of death looming above their heads as the White Walkers pushed further and further South.

Things shifted, took another turn, after they found their silver lining. The threats gone, and only ever the familiarity remaining, the intimacy, the closeness.

Her and him and no one else.

Jaime _did_ wonder why Brienne did not oppose by the time they had confessed, and the public excuse of Jaime wanting to know her honor protected from Wildlings and Dothrakis no longer bore meaning. After all, the procedures would demand _quite_ another way of going about courtship, about going about one another. However, Brienne was the one who sought out his chamber that night, and they have ever since that day, no matter the humored or even irritated glances that came their way.

Though, frankly speaking, Jaime never gave a damn – and isn’t going to start any time soon.

And as of now, he could tell them all to leave them alone because, at last, they share bed as husband and wife, just as the rules would have it.

Jaime can still hear the music they played at the feast humming inside his head, though perhaps some people are still partying on at this point of time, he would never know, and neither does Jaime bother to check. For that, lying here next to Brienne is far too much bliss for a man who thought the greatest bliss he could expect was a quick death.

He is ripped out of his thoughts when he can hear her shift, before Jaime can feel her callused fingertips against his stump, a small sigh falling from her lips. Jaime can feel the affection seep from her skin right into his, at some point unable to believe it to be real despite the fact that he can feel it, see it even though the night as dark as dragonglass does well to hide it away.

Jaime has never been with any other woman but Cersei before Brienne, and Jaime had to learn that this tall woman who looks mannish and does not hesitate to hit him if he misbehaves, bears the gentlest touches he has ever had brush against marred skin, a missing hand. There is an adoration in her touches, while hesitant for sure, that takes Jaime’s breath away again and again, not believing it. That a woman could love him so and express it without words, with the simplest of gestures.

To him, a lot of those things are entirely new, sensations Jaime has never felt in that way. Certainly, there were also tender touches he received while with Cersei, but it is different with Brienne, to the point that Jaime lacks the measures to compare even if he tried, which he rarely does anyway. As time keeps passing, more and more aspects of that part of the relationship to his sister keep fading away into the shadows of the night, flit away like crows into darkness. Curiously, he continues to remember Cersei less and less as his lover, and more and more as his sister, a woman who did horrid things for power’s sake, ascending into madness that came to an end when she chose to rather die sitting on the Throne to keep power even in her death than lee and ask forgiveness, before she faded away in endless green. Jaime tends to think that his memory means to put her in the right place, to where she should have belonged to him all along, if not for the choices the two made in life that damned so many, brought forth so much bad, but also… apparently, against all odds, something good.

Because this here? It _is_ good. It is true, and it is his as much as it is Brienne’s. And Jaime, while still unsure as to how he comes to deserve that happiness, that unexpected bliss, cannot find the bad in it.

_There is no bad in loving her. There cannot possibly be. Loving her is the best choice I ever made, because she chose me back in turn._

Brienne’s increasing shifting in the bed announces that she slipped from her sleep, along with her stronger grip on his arm, which is nonetheless like a feather’s touch to Jaime, a soothing ointment for a wound he thought had healed in years, but seemingly required and still requires her ministration to ease even the last pain of the loss of his limb out of his body.

“Did I rouse you?” he asks quietly.

“No,” she answers with a breathy sigh, still heavy with sleep. “My mind just kept reeling and dancing to the music of the feast.”

“They have good musicians here, I will give you that,” Jaime chuckles softly.

“I always loved it when the musicians came to Evenfall Hall for the feasts. It fills the entire castle with life,” Brienne exhales, and he can hear the small smile tugging at her lips.

“I could have done without my brother trying to sing the toast to our wedding at first,” he snorts.

“Gladly, you found a way to stop him.”

Jaime grins to himself. He was not entirely surprised that Tyrion was happy about the feast. Already upon arrival on the Sapphire Isle, his younger brother was almost ecstatic about being shown around the island, asking what felt like a million questions about it, which Brienne answered to the best of her abilities and with a patience she can very well lack when around him, which did rub Jaime just slightly in the wrong way.

However, what still surprised him was that one moment as the two stood by one of the corners of the ballroom, sharing a silent cup of wine, and Tyrion said to him just how glad he is for his older brother to have such luck now. There was a glistening in his eyes that Jaime only rarely saw throughout his life, because Tyrion knows better than to let people in on his thoughts, so that they don’t make daggers and swords from them.

“Had I taken the deal you proposed to Father to spare my life, who knows? Maybe you could have had much more of that life by now. Lady Brienne was already available back then, was she not?” was what he said.

While his younger brother surely meant it as a jest, Jaime saw the sincerity in the statement, heard the unspoken apology. He and Tyrion took their time to come to terms. There are still things unspoken that still have to be voiced, but that moment assured Jaime that there is a peace possible even after all that was between them, because, in the end, as corny as it may sound, love is one of the few powers that can win over hatred.

“My brother is gifted with cunning and intellect, but no good singing voice.”

“His speech was nice anyway,” Brienne argues. “If a bit long.”

“He is good with words. Sometimes too good for his own good,” Jaime agrees.

“Overall, the feast was more than I ever expected it to be,” Brienne sighs, and Jaime finds himself so much at ease as he feels hers, all tension, for once, blown out of her as they put the candles out and let the night cloak them in obsidian.

“By far more. Though I was a little disappointed that you denied me a proper dance _without_ swords,” he chuckles.

Because he cannot complain about a lack of dance with swords. Even though Brienne will keep the weakness in her bad leg, that doesn’t stop that woman from knocking him into the dust… _every now and then_.

“I have a good enough excuse. My leg still gives me enough trouble,” Brienne huffs.

She was surprised with herself that she reconciled herself with that so early on. Brienne thought it would drive her about as insane as it did when she had to lie still in bed, following the war against the dead. She always considered her vitality and endurance some of her most important and best aspects. That helped her fight well, that helped her protect people. And at first, fear clutched at her heart at the mere thought that she may not be able to swing the sword she used to.

_Though gladly, my leg is not too bad to require a cane. Then certainly, I would have rioted._

However, once the pain had subsided and she could move around again, Brienne found herself somewhat at peace with herself, with that now rather stiff limb of hers, that blemish. Because then she remembered a dark knight, dipped into onyx, sitting by a small campfire, tied up, muddied and bloodied, to tell the man now lying next to her that he had to eat, had to live, that he was more than that hand and that he should stop complaining.

And Jaime had eaten, and Jaime had lived, so Brienne realized that there was no other way for her but to keep walking with a limp. If Jaime managed to fend off White Walkers with his left hand, after the Bloody Mummers took his sword hand with a rusty knife, then so can she carry on with a stiff leg, can walk, can run with a crook.

_And give Jaime hell when we pick up the swords. For that he fought magnificently in the war, I am still beating him far too often these days. Even though he insists that he is not beating me. As if._

“We will delay it until your leg is better, then. Just for me,” Jaime argues with a smirk. He is pretty sure that she rolls her eyes at him right at this moment.

“You have odd wishes,” she snorts.

“I just want to dance with my wife once outside the training yard. Is that asked so much?” he laughs.

“You know how I feel about dances.”

Jaime does by now, after Brienne told him about that ball that made her fall in love with Renly, which gave him a far better understanding of how she ever came to fancy him, while at the same time, it made him understand almost painfully why she oftentimes fails to comprehend what he sees in her, that he sees a beauty in her that most others don’t, Brienne herself included.

“Ever the more a reason that I change something about that,” he tells her.

He cannot undo the past, Jaime knows that painfully well by now, but that doesn’t mean he cannot correct some past things by doing them right in the future.

“We will have to see,” she replies slowly, to which he teases, “Well, I know how to lure you now.”

“Do you?” she challenges.

“Mhm, it’s the music. Don’t think I didn’t notice how you moved along to the beat even while seated at the head of the table beside me, sipping wine,” Jaime hums.

“Maybe yours eyes have been fooling you, my lord. You had _quite_ a bit of wine.”

“Do not take me for a fool,” he argues. “I would never get drunk on my own wedding. Or else this here would have been even more of a shameful performance.”

To say that it was a “rocky start” is likely an understatement. Jaime thought his movements would be smooth, that he would be able to provide the certainty he knew was not going to come from Brienne. After all, in contrast to her, he’s done this before, more than once. However, the moment the doors to their chamber closed and the music started to die out, it seemed as though they were kissing for the first time, were caressing each other with clumsy hands matching those of youths not knowing what to do because they have never done this before, not knowing where to hold, where to touch, and that despite all the practice they got well in advance of the wedding night.

Jaime thought it would be as easy as it is to love her, _because nothing is easier than loving her_ , but all confidence he normally inherits faded away as they removed their clothes and it became real to them both that yes, they are wedded husband and wife now. Two knights who’d sworn the Kingsguard vows to their respective kings.

However, his hesitance took a bit of a turn when he realized that Brienne was rather irritated by it, her big blue eyes searching him, finding him in the darkness, pinning him down.

“You have to tell me if I am doing something wrong,” she then said, chewing on her lower lip. “I haven’t done this before.”

Jaime then pressed a kiss to the corner of her mouth, flashing a smirk that only ever intensified her irritation, but he went on to answer, “You did nothing wrong. I was rather concerned with my own… skittish movements… and… thinking about it, I haven’t done this before either.”

“But you… you laid with…,” she meant to say, but he didn’t let her because he wanted only them to be here, them and no one else. “But not with you. And that means I haven’t done this right here yet either.”

“I mean… we do not have to if you don’t want to.”

Jaime leaned his forehead against the hollow of her strong shoulder with a snort, then. “My dearest wife, of that you can be certain. It's not just that I want to, I have been aching for that.”

“You have?” she asked.

“You’d have no idea how often,” he muttered, gathering all of his confidence as he pressed himself against her firm enough to push her back on the mattress. “And with what urge.”

 _I want you. I need you. It’s that simple, that basic, and yet so very overwhelming, so all-encompassing_ , was what he wanted to say, though the words did not come.

And yet, Brienne seemingly heard the message as their lips collided, and both let themselves fall into the cloak of darkness, bathed only in the moonlight coming through the window to make them shine like daggers of obsidian.

The moment he moved into her was the one other instance that filled Jaime’s heart with a strange sort of dread, wanting to be right there, become one with her, and feeling her move against him to transmit the need to have him there, but still afraid of it, of hurting her. For the fraction of a moment, Jaime heard her shouts as Locke’s men dragged her away to take her by force, until he shouted out. However, he was suddenly met and overtaken by a confidence not his as she pulled him closer, kissed his lips, whispering his name as they became one.

At that moment, all time stopped around them, the black of the night swallowing all of those concepts, all past and future, leaving only just the present, only them as they stayed still as one, adjusting, getting to know, pausing, taking a deep breath, then two, and after some time, moved as one, faster and faster and closer and closer until all lines between them blurred to blackness, leaving no way to tell where one began and where the other ended. They only ever knew that they ended as they cried out each other’s names, collapsed into each other, then stilled, and time slowly, very slowly, began to take shape again, flitting across the dark room, leaving them adrift in each other’s arms.

“Shameful performance?” she asks, pulling Jaime out of his memories, back to the faintest outline of her body beside him, shining even through the tar-like night. “I don’t think it was.”

“Well, as time passes, I surely hope to do better than that. After all, it is my duty to please my Lady Wife,” he tells her, letting his index finger dance over her side once, which has her shiver for a moment, then let out a small, shy laughter.

“You can be such a fool sometimes,” she snorts, tapping the flat of her free hand against the top of his head. “I always thought it would be dreadful the first time, you know? My septa, back in the day, was rather outspoken about the horrors of the first bedding.”

“Which is why young maidens would do better not taking advices from women who do not take part in that by virtue of the vow they took,” Jaime huffs. “They have no clue what they are talking about.”

“Well, it wasn’t just my septa. Quite a few said that it would be painful and terrifying, more hurtful than anything I’d ever known. Some offered comfort and said that it would get better… some others only ever said that you get used to it.”

“You had terrible advisors,” Jaime huffs, shaking his head.

She shrugs. “It appears so. It wasn’t at all what they told me it would be, it was even less what I believed it to be.”

“So, can I take from that that it was not as painful?” he asks quietly, a bit hesitantly, even.

“It wasn’t even really _painful_. That was what likely took me by surprise the most. Perhaps it is because I am used to _far_ worse pains than that, I wouldn’t ever know, but… uhm… once you were… once we were…,” she mutters, stops then, likely blushes, though the darkness sadly hides that from Jaime’s view. “It was just different, uncomfortable perhaps, but so very fleeting that I can’t even seem to recall the sensation now.”

Brienne dreaded the wedding night as much as she found herself, if strangely so, looking forward to it. While Brienne would rather die than admit it out loud, at least at this point of time, that she wanted more of his touches than they dared to exchange until tonight. They wanted to do it right, they wanted to do it according to the rules, and while Brienne was glad for it, was thankful for his patience and his understanding that it mattered to her to do this as the conventions demand, she was surprised with herself at how much she wanted him, his touches, his lips, his stump against the small curve of her hip, his fingers moving against her, against bare skin. She wanted all of it and more, and that shocked Brienne, because she never thought that she would feel that way.

Yet, she did, and yet she did this very night when she dared to make a move forward so that they became one, sensing Jaime’s hesitance in the dark, and wanting to get it out of the way, to remove the barrier standing between them.

As soon as the discomfort had faded, had made space for the pleasure to rise in her like a wave, crush against her lips as he kept kissing her, Brienne found herself falling, found herself forgetting, until she found herself in him, with him.

And it was at that moment that kept extending on and on and on that Brienne made another strange discovery, one she had spotted earlier already, as she had walked into the great hall, and the only eyes she saw, the only ones that mattered, were Jaime’s as he looked at her, smiled at her, and seemed to her as though she was the only one in the room, too.

There was an adoration Brienne never thought would come her way, would only ever flow from her without being returned, yet there she stood, in a dress that made no sudden beauty of her, and Jaime looked happy, nothing but happy.

And as they consummated their marriage, Brienne spotted the same adoration that was directed at no one but her, whenever he brushed a sweaty streak of her hair out of her face, ran his thumb over her cheek, waited for her, guided her, paused, and studied her, let himself be guided even though she barely knew the way.

“So… overall, we can consider that wedding ceremony a success, you think?” he asks with a smirk.

“Well, no one died, no one made a complete fool of himself, neither of which were us… and we are here now. I’d tend to think that it was more than a success. We are here now. The goal is achieved, is it not?” Brienne asks.

“Oh, so now all work is done?” he chuckles.

She snorts. “Now the real work begins.”

“You can be _so_ very motivating, my lady, already starting to think of work during our _wedding night_.”

“What? You expected this to be easy? Then you have been a fool, my lord,” she laughs.

Jaime shifts on the mattress with a sigh, readjusting his position. “I was surprised, you know?”

“About what?” she asks, frowning. She can hear his pensive expression almost as he starts to draw nonsense patterns on he exposed side.

“That your people didn’t want to lynch me?” he chuckles.

“Neither would I have let them, had they tried,” Brienne tells him.

Jaime laughs. “Most kind of you.”

“You know how I mean it.”

“In fact I do,” he exhales. “But what I was trying to say… today, I actually prepared for resistance to come. Glances that cut like daggers made of dragonglass. I mean, I am still the Kingslayer, will forever be known under that name. And now I am also the man whose sister ordered for their Lord’s murder and for their lands to be partly destroyed at the hands of Euron Greyjoy. I didn’t dare believe that they would accept me by your side… at least not after this amount of time. You are their Lady of Tarth, and not in my wildest dreams did I even think that they would have me as their Lord.”

Following Tyrion’s advices, though they shared that sentiment even before Jaime’s younger brother proposed the plan, they set up a big ceremony. And that despite the fact that neither one really cared about a big feast, about the excess. In fact, they first thought about keeping it small, after all, resources are still diminishing until the lands become fertile again. Truth be told, Jaime was very tempted to ask for Brienne’s hand already while still at Winterfell, take her to the heart tree and take the vows. Even more so considering that big weddings tended to result in big tragedies for the past years. However, the driving force for the small wedding was what was and is at the heart of what is between them – them, only them.

However, as Tyrion suggested, it could not harm to get the common folk on their side a bit more. A feast with plenty of food, wine, mead, song and plays, lanterns and candles shining through the night like a beacon of hope in an otherwise still rather desolate place yet to hopefully burgeon again.

“The people are no fools. You don’t buy them with a flagon of wine or a loaf of bread. However, on that one thing the nobles have been proven right again and again throughout the centuries, a moment of distraction does well to ease the minds of those who suffer, who labor hard,” was what Tyrion had said to him when they discussed the wedding, which was a rather strange thing, considering that Jaime was never present for his brother’s to Sansa back in the day, and it was believed for the longest of times that Jaime would never take a wife.

And the younger Lannister brother went on to add, “And in any case, dear brother. Consider this: You want to be a part of their lives. It may be not an unwise move to show them that the guest right matters again, and that you will have them at your tables the same way you want to have a seat at the table that is your lady’s isle. Daenerys wanted to break the wheel, but as of now, it may be for the best not to break it, but to make it run with other wheels in new orders. Most folks don't want to be part of politics, so long the people speaking in their name do it in their interest.”

And so, a big wedding was in place, with fine tunics and vests with Lannister lions embroidered with golden threads, and a wedding dress in pale blue that had the bride’s eyes almost overflow, the hem decorated with golden embroidery, suns and crescent moons and one lion right at the center.

A feast where young and old, locals and royals from across the Seven Kingdoms, met and saw one another, dined on the same roasted pork and pastries, and drank mead from the same barrels. Which worked far better than either ever imagined it to be by the time Tyrion took over the planning of that “most crucial wedding – a union of East and West!”

For Jaime, one of the moments that shocked him most was when he’d kissed Brienne while all dined, a small gesture of affection that he didn’t even think of because it grew to be a natural thing between them by now, and it was some of the men from the council meeting whose voice he heard, cheering them on and shouting to raise the glasses “to the Lord and Lady of Tarth.”

For a moment, it didn’t seem to matter that he is the Kingslayer. It didn't matter whose brother Jaime was, and in what fashion he had loved one for the world to know. And even during a huge banquet that seemed to be about anything but them, it was about just the two of them, no one but them, and the people were fine with that.

“You should not underestimate my people then,” Brienne says, pulling Jaime away from the feast, the cheers ringing in the darkness, back to the shape of her body that he cannot trace with his eyes, but only with himself as he keeps close to her, lazily trailing his fingertips up and down the length of her tall frame. “Just like you should not underestimate yourself. That seems unlike you anyway.”

“How would I underestimate myself?”

“Tyrion told you already, and he was so right about it. You have something about yourself that makes people want to follow you. Your armies followed you at Highgarden, they followed you when you fought Daenerys Targaryen for the first time. And that even though they know you to be the Kingslayer, right?” she tells him.

It’s curious to Brienne that Jaime, for all his arrogance, still oftentimes fails to see the light in him, because she sees it, and Brienne knows that she is not the only one. She saw it in the farmer’s eyes when they discussed new stables, new deliveries to be made in exchange for other goods now scarce on the isle. She saw it in the eyes of the guild masters who, after initial misgivings, soon had to realize that the man they despised was actually out to help them, and made it work.

Though that seems to be the trouble when you emit your own light. When you look behind yourself, you only ever see your own shadow.

“The Seven may help me if my Father is proven right about those things even in his death,” Jaime chuckles. “But you have the rights of it, nothing would be further from my intentions than to talk of your people any less than they are. I am grateful for their patience with the Kingslayer.”

“They are your people now, too,” Brienne reminds him. “Or people.”

“… Indeed,” Jaime says, letting that sink in for a moment, then two. _Our people_. “Just like the people are Casterly Rock are yours now, too. Thinking about it, you will have to pay a visit there, too. Once we have thing settled here for reconstruction. I have to present them with the Lady of the Rock.”

She snorts.

“Now don’t you laugh. If I am Lord of Tarth, then you have to live with the title that you now inherited from your dear husband, too, my lady,” he scolds her playfully.

“We two as Wardens, as Lord and Lady… who could have guessed, huh?” Brienne sighs with a smirk.

“Not me, that is for sure. I thought I had better chances learning how to fly than _that_ ,” Jaime huffs.

“Sometimes I fear that this is all a dream of spring, and really only just a dream,” Brienne then says in a small voice, barely carrying over the darkness around them. “Or that something bad is about to come our way. Since when do the likes of us get happy endings, you tell me?”

“So you are afraid that our happiness is only short-lived,” he asks quietly.

Brienne says nothing in reply. Jaime scoot a little closer. “Well, I cannot make any promises. I don’t know what the future holds. It’s as you said, there is a lot of work ahead of us. Times won’t be easy. Destroying is easy, rebuilding is the tough part.”

He pulls her closer to himself, holds her to himself until he can beat her heart against his, _with_ his. “But of that one thing I am certain: Even if the Gods may want to take it all away from us, I will fight to keep it, to keep you. Always.”

Brienne says nothing at that, just lets the warmth of his body flood into her, lets his steady heartbeat calm her. She never thought that she would seek comfort, after Brienne denied the possibility that someone would have that to spare for a woman who looks as though she wouldn’t ever require reassurance, would never have weaknesses to show. However, in Jaime’s embraces, she dares to take it all in, lets herself go, lets her fears come to the surface, allows them to be swept out of her as his warmth fills her, calms her heart, until she finds her rhythm next to his.

“And anyway, tonight is not the night to ponder that,” he adds in a lighter tune.

“You are probably right,” she agrees.

Tonight is a night of happiness. It’s the present that counts now, not the future. Inside this chamber, it is just them and their present, and in such, she is at peace, and in such, there are no dangers, no fears, just Jaime holding her, their little-big bliss.

“I am right most certainly,” Jaime chuckles.

“I will have to take your word for it,” Brienne chuckles softly. She can feel him shift once more, only for his lips to find herself even in the dark, and Brienne finds impossibly more solace in falling into that now familiar rhythm of both his heart beating next to hers, and Jaime’s lips on her own.

“Reminds me a bit of our first kiss,” Jaime says once they part again, his lips only inches from hers, so he can feel he hot breath against his skin.

“True,” Brienne agrees, feeling his hot breath against her skin. “Right now, I couldn’t even tell where you are if not for you being within my reach at this moment.”

She lets out a small squeal when Jaime moves on top of her, kissing down the thick column of her neck. “We can change that at once, my dear Lady Wife. If you can’t see me, I can make sure that you feel me. Would be a pity if I lost my wife in the darkness all over.”

“I’m staying so long you do,” she replies.

“They will likely have to drag me from the chamber from this day on,” he says with a grin, his touches growing more heated, announcing something that Brienne is not yet too familiar yet, but finds herself responding to, answering as though it was a song she knew in a long time already.

_Because it’s him – and that is the one man I know, the one man who puts my heart at ease, even when he has it beat faster and faster._

“But before we think about that, I should use the remains of our wedding night to see about my marital duties of pleasing my dear lady wife to the best of my abilities,” he snickers, giving her shoulder a teasing bite.

“You can be so foolish,” she groans.

“Foolishly in love with you most certainly,” he chimes, pressing himself against her more firmly, pleased to feel her calf locking around him, beckoning him closer even when their lips still enjoy the game of pretending.

“Which makes fools of us both, I assume, for I am in love with such a fool,” Brienne laughs softly, her hands searching and finding him in the dark, pulling her to him.

“And even married him. Imagine that!” Jaime says with a grin, pressing a hot, wet kiss to the corner of her mouth.

“Oh, I don’t have to imagine. I know he is right there with me,” Brienne argues, running her hands over his exposed back to map the ups and downs of his muscles as they keep moving, shifting, rippling as she drags her fingers along their outlines.

Even if she can’t see him, she can feel him, and in that way, spot her now husband even in the dark, painting the world obsidian.

And Brienne is by no means afraid of the dark anymore, because he is there with her.

“And she with him.”

“Always.”


	4. Emerald

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jaime and Brienne overlook the first seedtime for the Sapphire Isle, both anxiou and relieved that, at last, it seems that they have a chance of fulfilling their plans of growing a future. 
> 
> They discuss politics, among other things, much to Jaime's annoyance. 
> 
> Some news arrive.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello everyone, thank you so much for your lovely comments and kudos. You have no idea how much they mean to me! 
> 
> So, again, I am changing the theme order because it resonated better with how i want to plot that story. So... it should be ruby, but that is going to come with the after next chapter, I assure you. So, fo rnow, emerald is the gemstone of the day!
> 
> I hope you'll enjoy this chapter. 
> 
> Much love! ♥♥♥

Jaime never thought that peaceful life can prove to be such a busy business. He always thought that the duty of a knight was bothersome, but ever since he took up on the duties of a lord, he had to realize that it doesn’t just come with the pleasures and joys of having his wife by his side.

 _And in my bed_ , he thinks to himself amused, stealing a short glance over to Brienne as they walk along the lines of the fields where the fresh seedlings that arrived from Casterly Rock have been planted these past few days.

One shouldn’t make the mistake to believe that this otherwise shy woman is the same behind closed doors of their bedchamber. While boldness is not inherent to her, it grows rather quickly, Jaime had to realize, and was glad to see burgeoning between them. And along with that grows an increasing appetite most certainly not only one-sided. Jaime couldn’t wipe the smirk off his face when it was Brienne who, after he had been away for a week, for matters of trade unions, closed the council rather quickly as he stood by the door silently, waiting for her to finish. She excused herself, and only once out the door was instantly all over him, resolutely guiding him to their bedchamber. The “I miss you” and “I need you now” were left unspoken, transmitted as their lips met, so to have enough time to satisfy that need, and ease that ache that had apparently built up over his short-lived absence.

However, beside those oh very joyful pleasures, responsibilities weigh heavy on them both. They know that a lot is expected of them, just like they expect a lot from themselves in turn, not wanting to fail the people under their protection. They have to prove themselves as Lord and Lady, to the people, to justify the trust they put in them. Or at least that is how they came to view their duty to the people of Casterly Rock and Tarth. And that in itself proves to be a task that leaves Jaime falling nose first into the bed after another day of discussions and letters to be sent away with the crows nearly always, relieved when, at last, he can put his body and mind to ease for the night.

_I am getting gray hairs over all this, quite literally so._

Warden of West and East apparently have a lot to do, a rather large role to play, a surprisingly big role to play, actually. And that for two knights who thought that their greatest game would be to die in the great war and leave it to the next generations to rebuild.

Yet here they are, planting seeds, growing futures.

 _Who could have guessed_?

“… We still have to see about the delivery meant to go up North, as we discussed with Lady Sansa during the last meeting. Last time, they packed it all wrong and the ship almost would have gone under because they loaded on too much,” Brienne says, pulling Jaime out of his thoughts, back to her and the dots of green on brown and black plains.

“Hm? Oh yes, _that_ ,” he agrees with a frown.

“Where have you been inside your head? Very far away?” she asks with a small smile.

Her dear husband can be surprisingly brooding at times, despite the fact that he claims that he is not, or as he always says, “You have not seen true brooding unless you have seen Jon Snow do it. I am silently contemplating.”

“Incredibly close, actually,” Jaime chuckles, watching as Brienne keeps fiddling a long blade of grass between her fingers.

Brienne still prefers breeches and culottes over pompous dresses, but she seemingly found a way to reconcile the two styles now that some time has passed with her as Lady of Tarth. These days, Brienne mostly walks around in boots and culottes, coupled with a shorter cut dress, quilted or not depending on the unsteady weather. The short dresses allow for free movement, but still bring out the aspect that Brienne was eager to hide away for a long time, her womanly side that resides right behind that of a gallant knight. Over time, Brienne even got a bit more daring, sometimes wearing dresses with lacey sleeves and floral patterns, or even the “girlish colors” once in a while, though she will always ask her dear husband if it looks ridiculous to her, even though the answer is always the same: “Not at all, my lady.”

As of now, Brienne mostly wears greens and blues, much to Jaime’s pleasure, because he simply loves the way those colors bring out the sapphire blue in her eyes that he can’t help but marvel at, no matter how much time has passed.

Brienne somehow looks as though she truly arrived home, arrived home in herself.

The limp that remained from the injury does nothing to disrupt that picture. And as Jaime can tell from fighting with her in the training arenas whenever time allows, it does not in the least keep her from excelling with the sword.

 _Gods know how many bruises that woman gave me by now_.

“Then where were you?” she asks.

“Thinking about you,” Jaime replies with a grin, to which she snorts, “ _That_ was corny.”

“But it’s the truth, my wife! You do me no justice. You are always on my mind. I can’t help it that you enchant me so.”

Though truth be told, that is the kind of sorcery Jaime doesn’t mind. He can well do without wights and dragons, red priests and priestesses and blood magic. However, the enchantment pouring out of those big blue eyes? Jaime doesn’t mind being caught up in that spell _at all_.

“If you think that this will convince me of what you already suggested last time we were here, you are gravely mistaken. We are here to see about the fields,” she warns him.

“We could still do that after we have taken care of business, though,” Jaime argues, nodding off to the side, past the fields with only dots of green, over to trees that area already and still rich in just that color. “That grove over there would work for fine most certainly. Think about all the things I could do with you.”

“You keep those thoughts to yourself,” Brienne tells him, pointing her index finger at him, the blade of grass sloppily hanging over her palm. “What would it look like if anyone were to see the Lord and Lady of the isle in such a… _situation_?”

“They would know what they know anyway. It's no secret _that_ we do it,” Jaime snickers. “In fact, I may remind you, my lady, it is considered our duty and privilege. Much in contrast to what was our pledge while still members of a Kingsguard.”

“But we should keep it inside the bedchamber, wouldn’t you agree?” she huffs, starting to run her fingers over the blade of grass again.

“Oh, now you are acting more prudish than you should, because we both know you are no longer the shy maiden you used to be. Just like you should be able to recall that it was also _you_ who could hardly keep it to the bedchamber alone. Do I have to remind you of that one time after the council was over and we couldn’t seem to get off the table, or that other time in the armory, or that one time in the…,” he means to say, but Brienne cuts him off rather harshly this time, “Shush now.”

“They don’t hear us anyway,” he agues, enjoying the blush creeping across her pale face. Jaime just loves that no matter what, that same behavior won’t ever seem to change, which makes teasing her a continuous pleasure he considers his privilege foremost.

Brienne shakes her head, fuming. “You are incorrigible.”

“That is hardly any news. And you cannot blame me for being hungry for my dear lady wife,” Jaime tells her, playfully moving a bit closer as he shifts his weight on the leg facing her. “There is so much work that I cannot get to that as often as I’d need to.”

“Poor you,” she snorts as they keep walking, trying her best to hide both the blush away as well as the knowledge that this is what she is for him. And so, she starts toying around with the blade of grass again.

“Yes, poor me. Maybe we should pass a law that the Lord of Tarth gets to take off at least one hour of the day, at _any_ location, to see about his marital duties being fulfilled. That is very important,” Jaime laughs.

“You propose that to anyone only just once, and you will have to break your own laws because I will not let you anywhere near my bed,” Brienne warns him – because she knows that he would.

_He thinks himself by far too funny than he actually is._

Though, in all fairness, Brienne must admit that Jaime is one of the few people who manage to make her laugh even when she does not want to. He makes her smile when she is sad. And he won’t leave her alone even when she tells him that she wants the distance, because he knows she doesn’t even when her lips say otherwise.

“As though you could keep away from me. We both know that you have an apparent _need_ for your dear lord husband – and his thorough fulfilment of his duties,” he says with a teasing grin that reaches all the way to ridiculous to Brienne.

“And hence, I need no law to make certain of that to keep happening,” she concludes, to which he only ever laughs, glancing upwards to a pale teal sky, blinking against the sunlight. “My Lady Wife is so wise.”

“My Lord Husband, by contrast, is oftentimes too much of a fool for his own good,” Brienne snorts.

“Well, at least I am wise enough to learn how to delegate work instead of trying to do everything by myself,” he huffs, his tune light nonetheless. Jaime loves jesting with her about as much as kissing her.

 _But really just almost_.

“You sincerely pride yourself chasing Pod around to do whatever tasks you can think of?” Brienne huffs, narrowing her eyes at him. “I still feel the dire need to apologize to him whenever I get words of what you bred out for him again.”

“He does a marvelous job!” Jaime insists. “And with such enthusiasm!”

The two were quite surprised when the squire suddenly winded up on the isle. After all, he and Tyrion went to Casterly Rock, following the great war. And for all they could judge, Podrick was intent on staying in the West, with the man he first pledged himself to. However, then, off one of the ships coming from Casterly Rock he hopped one day, much to their surprise.

Because Tyrion seemingly forgot to mention that certain detail.

When Brienne asked him, still caught up in astonishment of seeing the lad back after she gave him free from her services, Pod explained that while he will forever be indebted to Tyrion and considers him one of his best friends, it is a knight’s life he wants to live, and that the only one he wishes to learn from are the people he fought alongside with.

“I am my lady’s squire, there is no way of turning it another way, and I don’t want to either. So I would like to continue following my lady… if you’d have me, still.”

Podrick was perhaps most surprised at Brienne’s reaction as she stepped closer, squeezed his shoulder with a kind of affection she would never let show before the Long Night, and told him that if he wants to live on the isle, he will be a welcome guest, a welcome member of their community.

“Though, if you still want to be knighted, you will have to prove yourself to a true knight who holds the title,” she added with a grin, nodding at Jaime. “And I am almost convinced that he may manage to give you more work than I already did.”

“M’lady, after all that happened, and after all that we managed to survive, I believe that even Ser Jaime’s demands will not break me,” Pod replied, in his easy, enthusiastic way that even the horrors of the Long Night did not manage to wash away.

“You are a fool to believe that,” Jaime had only ever laughed wickedly, pleased to see the lad squirm. Though certainly, Pod matured quite a lot in the course of the Long Night, now bearing battle scars, and a slowly but surely growing beard.

 _War will do that to you_.

Jaime can still vividly recall how Brienne almost passed out under every step with the badly injured leg when she got news of Podrick’s fate at last. They had lost him on the battlefield when they pushed towards the heads of the army of the undead, while Podrick fought against the other evils, having their backs from a distance.

Asking about Pod was one of the first things Brienne did after she had woken from her own unconsciousness, following some initial fussing about Jaime’s injuries as he sat by her stretcher. While Jaime already knew that she came to care deeply about her squire, it was right at that moment that he spotted something in the desperation flickering in Brienne’s big blue eyes that could only ever be described as fear for a loved one. Jaime felt ever the worse when he could not tell her about Podrick yet, because he had no clue, and no one he kept asking could provide answers either.

Thus, when the news reached them that Podrick was found and brought to one of the sickbays, there was no holding back for Brienne anymore. Jaime tried to, made any attempt to reason with her, offered her to walk with her, steady her, but Brienne got up and started to limp as though her very life depended on it, dragged herself over wet, stony ground. Jaime was only ever one step behind her, beckoning her to slow down, to let him help, but to no avail.

Brienne only ever stopped once she saw Pod, still unconscious on a stretcher, his throat wrapped in a thick, bloodied bandage after one of the White Walkers managed to cut him with a rusty, frozen blade, miraculously missing the major vein by only just an inch, or so Samwell Tarly told them later on. Jaime just saw as Brienne went down on her knees by Podrick’s side, ignoring all pain, perhaps not even feeling it, grabbed his bloodied hand and wouldn’t let go until Jaime managed to talk some reason into her.

“Don’t you dare die on me, Pod. We are not nearly done with your training just yet. So don’t you dare. Don’t you dare,” she kept muttering over and over, with a fury that only thinly concealed her fear for him.

Though Jaime understood just why she held on with such desperation. It wasn’t just that she cares about Podrick despite the fact that she oftentimes tried and sometimes still tries to act as though that wasn’t true, but after the loss of her father, she didn’t want to lose another person close to her.

“I am responsible for him, Jaime. In contrast to my Father, he was not out of my reach. He was here with us… I can’t have it that he dies, too. I can’t fail to protect another one. I just can’t,” was the one thing she whispered hoarsely at him once he managed to make her get up to return to her own stretcher and get some rest, her leg twitching from the exertion, in the hallways, to where no one but he would hear what she normally tried to hide.

Jaime was not surprised that Brienne slipped back into her old routines once Pod awoke, telling him that he had to recover quickly so that they could train again, “so that the next time someone strikes at you, you don’t have your throat opened. What a shame would it be if I did not succeed to teach my squire that at least?”

However, her eyes betrayed Brienne anyway, wet with tears, just like the fact that she held the lad’s hand the whole time as she spoke.

And so, Podrick’s arrival on the Sapphire Isle proved to be a reunion that Brienne, if not very openly, very much appreciated. Though she is far less approving of Jaime’s _usage_ of the squire. However, to be fair, Jaime also trains with the lad when she cannot thanks to the bad leg giving her trouble far more often than he would like to.

“Pod is no cupbearer or messenger or what not. Tyrion has had Pod do only that plenty of times already. He is supposed to be a knight, not your personal assistant,” she scolds him.

“One does not exclude the other,” Jaime argues. “And in any case, I already told you as I said it to him that he shall be knighted when the harvest feast takes place.”

“ _If_ there is a harvest,” Brienne reminds him, letting her gaze brush over the freshly ploughed earth with dots of green spread around.

Because those emeralds in fresh soil may still get too much of a chill and die before they ever come to bloom. All know that this is a risk, if a necessary one.

_There is no way but forward, hasn’t been in a long time._

“And if there is not, then at least we can celebrate his knighthood,” Jaime argues.

Brienne curls her lips into a grimace. “So you just want to distract people?”

“Not distract, just… direct their gaze to something good instead of letting them fuss over the bad,” Jaime argues.

“Oh, so _now_ you act like a politician at last. What a curious moment to choose to bring that to light,” Brienne snorts.

He shrugs. “I am just being practical.”

“You sound more and more like a Lannister.”

“Well, apparently, that is what I am…,” Jaime chuckles, then frowns. “And since when is that an insult?”

“Didn’t you ever notice that it always was?” she huffs.

“Well, you are now a Lannister, too, and not just for the hair.”

Brienne blows out air through her nostrils. “The things we do for love.”

“Even bearing evil Lannister titles?” he teases.

“Even such.”

Jaime stops when she suddenly changes direction a bit, so that she steps with her leather boots on the dark earth of the fields. The blade of grass with which she toyed falls to the ground in the motion of her bending down to the ground. While the leg continues to give her trouble doing just those movements, Jaime knows she doesn't always need his help on those matters, because Brienne finds ways to move anew the same way he learned to adjust his grip with just one hand.

Jaime watches with interest as Brienne digs her fingers into the soft, dark soil, setting a seedling straight that was crooked and halfway out the earth already, which otherwise would have died most certainly.

“We should not waste any chances,” Brienne says as she flattens down the soil to make sure the seedling has a strong stance.

 _For that, they are far too valuable_ , she thinks to herself.

“You know, I didn’t think I’d end up having a farmer for a wife,” he jokes, amused if fascinated by the tenderness with which she puts the seedling back into its new home. Brienne rubs her palms together as she straightens back up, her movement surprisingly quick this time.

She practices a lot after all.  

When Jaime holds out his hand to her, she doesn’t hesitate to take it as she hops back to the path running along the field, so not to step on any seedling. Because Brienne also practices to accept help. While she doesn’t always need it, it can’t harm.

_At least Jaime keeps insisting on the matter._

“I am hardly a farmer,” Brienne huffs as they start to walk again. “We are just lucky to have good ones to overlook that growth is happening. As we both know, that is what life is about now, for all of us. We have to grow things. Too much time has been spent destroying crops, livestock… _lives_. Though I must say, it still surprises me that people tend to come to the same conclusion.”

Because Brienne cannot even begin to recount the many times she and Jaime discussed with growing anxiety how the fragile bonds starting to form in a realm still ripped apart by the past, the aftermath of war and intrigue, the Game of Thrones, may tear with only just a single misstep.

Just like Brienne can still vividly recall the first Council meetings, her nervousness, her fear in fact, when she heard familiar phrases, familiar threats of pulling apart, tearing away, keeping to oneself when this is a luxury no one enjoys at this point of time, where food is slowly running low, grounds are cold, and the winds still crisp, even though the sun is shining brightly.

However, she also recalls how those thoughts and words echoed in the chambers by the Iron Table – _they had to put that lump of metal to use somehow, or so Jaime always jokes about it whenever they sit down_ – and more and more voices joined the chorus. While disagreements are still far more common than agreements all share in, they are talking at least, they are discussing. And as of now, the Great Council has not fallen apart yet.

“Well, the Great Council meetings are still more of a mess than anything else,” Jaime huffs. “They act like children most of the time.”

“Did you expect it not to be?” she asks.

“I actually expected at least three murders after the second meeting the latest,” he laughs. “Though gladly, I didn't make a bet on the matter. I would have lost yet another one.”

“Just my point. It goes far better than any of us expected… at least these days. We should be thankful that it’s _only just_ a mess.”

“An _annoying_ mess. Always having to travel back and forth…,” he says, his voice trailing off towards the end.

“Such a cruel destiny,” she snorts.

“ _Of course_ it is. And _that_ is absolutely no joking matter, my dear wife. I thought I would live and die a knight. Then, I accustomed myself to the idea that I would live and die a lord. And now I have to get used to the idea that, as Wardens of East and West, we will likely die hand in hand on some ship as we travel to the next council meeting to discuss politics to talk sense into those people to no avail. It's a pity that I can’t make Tyrion Warden in my stead, too,” Jaime laments.

“You give him enough work with handling the Rock while we are here,” Brienne argues. “After all, you pride yourself delegating the work so wonderfully.”

“Oh, he enjoys himself doing just that task, trust me in this. Look at him during the council meetings! That man hums songs to himself as he gets to tell everyone to shut up so that he can guide the conversation again. My dear brother loves politics about as much as he loves wine and brothels. And beyond that, he is a surprisingly ambitious man who enjoys himself in the Game without Thrones, even if there is no longer a throne,” Jaime replies.

Curiously, to him it feels as though his younger brother finally found his place in the world. While Tyrion didn’t really let on to that matter, Jaime knows that his little brother has been chasing people’s approval. He chased the love and appreciation even of the family members who were nothing but cruel to him by the end of the day, he took great solace in his brother’s love, the one he was always certain of, or so Tyrion told him. And despite the fact that Tyrion prides himself not giving a damn on what others think of him, there is still a part in him that wants to be appreciated for his efforts, wants to be seen for what he does rather than for what he is.

And now, as Hand of the Realm, Tyrion can do what he was always good at, talking, negotiating, bargaining. And similarly, he admitted to Jaime that he likes it as his proxy all the same.

“You know, for a time, I thought that all I ever wanted was the Rock. I asked Father for it, considering it my birthright because you were in the Kingsguard and Cersei was Queen. I wanted to have it… but I actually wanted Father to reward me. I wanted him to have to recognize me, as a person, as for what I had done to protect his precious empire, as his son… but now, it’s different.”

“How?” Jaime had asked as they visited at the Rock, and the two brothers conversed one evening, over wine and a game of chess Tyrion forced Jaime into, only just to show him how good he is at the game.

“I don’t have to prove myself to you in that way. You always thought of me as your brother… even after… killing Father, as you said. It’s not the Rock I wanted, it’s approval that I sought, it was a way to prove myself at what I am good at. And I am good with politics. Thus, acting as your proxy feels… liberating. Can you imagine? Because it is really just… doing that. And I don't have to prove myself as a member of the family anymore.”

“Because you are,” was the simple reply Jaime offered, because he knew no other, which only had Tyrion smile at him approvingly. “ _Exactly_. I think we should drink to that.”

Which is what they did.

And so, it appears that the peace between the brothers is what put them at ease with themselves, too, at least in some aspects of their lives. It took the two a lot of effort, a lot of forgiving, swallowing of their pride and anger, but eventually, they had to see that there was no other chance but forgiveness, no other way but admitting to themselves that, by the end of the day, their love for one another keeps them together even when the world pulled them apart again and again.

“Well, no matter if Tyrion enjoys it now or not, or whether you enjoy it or not, things need to be done. We cannot afford to fail,” Brienne says, pulling Jaime away from memories of the Rock, back to the present of Tarth.

She licks her lips, looking over the fields full of small, fragile seedlings, glistening in the sun like crystals tossed on the ground.

“Why would we fail?” Jaime asks.

“Because we have no clue about what we are doing. None of us. The task we signed up for when we took our seats at the Iron Table exceeds any measure of what I have seen. It’s one thing to rebuild a castle that was destroyed, it’s another thing to manage to establish trading routes, even peace treaties seem rather feasible, granted that each region has something that the other needs in order to regain strength. However, as a whole… we are trying to build a world resting on new pillars.”

Jaime brushes his hand against her upper arm, running his thumb over it a few times, offering a gentle smile. “Uncertainty does not suit you, my lady.”

“It’s not so much uncertainty as it is… well, the realization that a lot of responsibility rests on our shoulders,” Brienne says, bowing her head slightly.

“When hasn’t it? We fought in the Great War. That is quite some responsibility that we carried to the day beyond the Long Night, successfully so, I may add.”

“Of course, it’s just…,” she means to say, and he completes, “You are the Lady of Tarth and the Rock now. And as such, you care a great deal about your people, I am aware.”

Brienne chews on her lower lip, running her fingers through her hair, looking at the fields. “The focus seems so much larger now.”

“Indeed,” he sighs. “The straightforwardness of knighthood… I never thought that there would be something to miss about the Kingsguard, but the simplicity of its orders did have its upsides. You guard one king, to keep one king’s secrets… and even that proved to be awfully complicated, but yes… protecting so many people, it is quite a task.”

“In fact,” Brienne agrees.

“Speaking of, I assume we already have to plan for our next visit to the Rock. Tyrion said that the people of Casterly Rock are eager to see their Lord and Lady return once more,” Jaime speaks.

“Is that what Tyrion’s been telling you? Because I cannot imagine that they bother to care to see us in the flesh so long there is someone to do what is required to help them with the reconstruction. Other than that, the common folk has little love to give for lords and ladies coming and going to their castles. Or is that what Tyrion wrote to you to lure you to the Rock so he can get more free time?” Brienne huffs.

“One can never know with that little bastard, but he has the rights of it that the people are surprisingly cheerful as of late,” Jaime argues.

“They are cheerful for the most part because they get the materials to rebuild and regrow. They can now look out on the fields and plains and see green instead of white and gray. However, we as persons have little to do with that. It’s how well we fulfill our functions as Wardens, Jaime.”

“It appears to me that my dear Lady Wife, despite her smartness, missed one important detail,” Jaime chuckles.

She blinks. “Which would be?”

“You do recall our last trip to the Rock?” he asks, to which she frowns. “Yes.”

“And how the people welcomed us?”

“They were quite… cheerful. But that is because that is what they believe we expect of them. They are used to that. Customs like that are deeply ingrained. Needless to mention that we arrived with things that they need and have a right to. So, of course they were in good spirit,” Brienne replies.

“One girl ran up to you and wanted you to show her your sword. Did you see that child’s smile when you did? Face the truth, Brienne, the people love their Lady of the Rock, their Lady of Tarth. Not as much as I do, _obviously_ , but they would rather have you lead them than… most other people.”

Brienne smirks, shaking her head. What would her father say if he were here now? She often wonders about that lately. Brienne is torn as to how he would react. She is certain that he would smile at her. He always smiled at her, unless she misbehaved, chasing boys and losing, until he agreed to letting her take fighting lessons with Goodwin.

However, would he be surprised to see her like this? As Lady of Tarth, Warden of the Stormlands, who also happens to be in charge of the people of Casterly Rock now, too? Or is it rather that her father would smile at his daughter knowingly, if he were here, telling Brienne that he knew all along that such a thing would await her in the future if only she finally grasped it.

It is one of those mysteries Brienne knows she will never solve, but that doesn’t stop it from dancing through her mind during moments such as these, those times of happiness she doesn’t know the reason why she ends up having them, and that won't ever have her father as a part of it, at least not in the same realm.

Brienne wants to believe that he is there in some other realm, watching her, seeing her, waiting for his daughter for when her time comes, so she can tell him the story of her life.

Before Brienne took off from Tarth for the first time in her life to join Renly’s army, her father and her heatedly debated about her going. Obviously, he didn’t want her to go, deeming it too dangerous for his last living child, but eventually, he gave in. However, on that day, alone in the great hall to say their goodbyes, her father said to her something that kept coming back to Brienne rather often lately:

“But once you come back home, and you will make certain that you do, you will have some great stories to tell. So that, at last, you can stop complaining about how no songs will ever be sung in your honor, child. You will sing them to me.”

“You know I don’t sing in front of people,” she told him back then, as shy as ever, but he only ever smiled his typical smile at her that is still rather prominent on her mind, which Brienne hopes to stay that way. And then he said, “But for your old father you will, won’t you?”

Her father pulled her close, then, Brienne remembers, and she had to leave fast thereafter, or else she never would have gathered the courage to leave.

It was the last embrace they ever shared, and had she known, Brienne would have held on for much longer. However, she knows that there is not much sense in grieving chances left neglected. They are the past now. Brienne cannot hold him longer anymore. What was done is done. What matters now is the future ahead of them, skipping in front of them with small feet, laughing, humming, singing, teasing them to follow, to come along, even though they still have their dear trouble keeping up.

“As it appears, I have to live with that fate,” Brienne says with a smile, pulling herself back to the present day, to Jaime’s smirk as he looks at her with a fondness she grew used to by now, but that astonishes her daily nevertheless.

_Some songs to sing for you indeed, Father. Some of which, I daresay, you will not believe, while others you may tell me that you already knew the melody of._

“Like you,” she adds, daring to tease. “The man who always thought that no one would ever like him because he will forever be known as the Kingslayer.”

“Your chances were much better from the onset,” Jaime huffs. “You’d think that there is one point past there is no forgiveness, no way back. And I thought that I was long since past that mark.”

“Well, so long you don’t disappoint them, I suppose they will be _generous_ ,” Brienne says with a grin. “So long you help grow a future that brings them peace, food, drink, and as much prosperity as times currently allow for, they won’t mind as much who builds the walls and pillars of that new world.”

“Well, a lot of that world will rise or fall with this coming harvest. If we don't make this work… the people may not consider us good Wardens anymore,” Jaime laughs, if a little nervously. While he tries his best to keep spirits high when it comes to those matters, Brienne knows that he shares in those fears.

Jaime wants to disappoint as little as she does. He wants to do things right that he did not and could not when he was still a member of the Kingsguard with no rights to lands or titles.

“Which is why we have to have a backup plan, which is what we discuss with the other Wardens as much as we do,” Brienne insists. Thinking about plans makes palpable, makes more stable a future that is only attached to few, thin strings.

“You don’t want to lose.” Jaime nods his head.

Brienne snorts. “You know I never yield.”

“Which is one of the reasons why I wedded you,” he laughs.

“So yielded to my unyielding?” Brienne huffs.

“In a way.”

“If _that_ is the one uplifting trait that made you choose me, then I find that rather disappointing,” Brienne huffs. He leans against her, then, giving her one of his typical smiles that have her shake her head with a smile each time. “Oh, my lady, fret not, I could not list all the reasons, but suffice to say, your unyielding is all but one tiny fraction of it.”

She rolls her eyes at him. “That still doesn’t get you anywhere closer to the grove, if you believed for only just a second that this would heighten your chances.”

“It can’t harm to try,” he laughs, playfully tapping the fingers of his left hand up and down her back. “I know that it takes a lot of convincing with you.”

“But on some things, you should know, I am far too stubborn to give in. As you said, I am unyielding,” Brienne argues.

“You are indeed,” he sighs, crossing his arms over his back, his left hand enclosing his stump. Now that the weather keeps getting warmer daily, Jaime realized that it can be quite a relief to walk around without the heavy golden hand that only ever makes him sweat beneath all that metal heating up in the sun’s heat. In fact, Jaime found himself forget about it for days, sitting on his nightstand.

 _Because Brienne sees me as complete with and without_.

And the people don’t seem to care about whether Jaime has a way to conceal that missing piece of his, because the people here all bear their scars, some of the men on the council are missing fingers and toes, some miss an ear, and some have scars running deep into the flesh, deep into the mind, as he gets to hear over conversations that increase over time, because Jaime sees to it that he invites them over more often to get in touch with his people.

And there is an unexpected freedom in being complete all on his own, and feeling complete all on his own, not having to hide the blemish, not having to hide the incompleteness, because it isn’t there. As a lord, it makes no difference that he is no longer the good swordsman that he once was.

You can be a just ruler without a hand.

You can be a caring lord with just a single hand.

You can bring people to respect and follow you with your left as much as with your right.

“So anyway, that trip to the Rock is still up to debate,” he says.

“I am not sure it’s the right time,” Brienne argues, which surprises him.

While Brienne is still rather uncertain about her place in the hearts of the people of Casterly Rock, her refusal is unlike the dutiful Lady of the Rock.

“Now don’t you dare tell me that you want to slack off our duties. The honorable Brienne of Tarth, Lady of the Rock and the Sapphire Isle, Warden of the Stormlands, does no such thing as far as I am concerned. And I should know, I married that woman!” he cries out in faux exasperation.

“And sometimes that woman cannot fathom jus why she married you of all people,” Brienne huffs, shaking her head.

“Because you can’t help but love me,” he teases.

“True, it appears.”

“So anyway, why would you not want to go see my brother get drunk and boast about yet another lawsuit he means to propose to the Great Council? After all the great speeches you keep giving about reconstruction and growing a new world, you should be a good example and do all the boring work that entails,” Jaime presses for details.

“Me? Giving great speeches?” Brienne makes a face.

“You should listen to yourself. You sound like a bloody politician, my dear wife, sorry to disappoint you, you are one of them,” Jaime chuckles, and she joins in. “Now, _that_ is insulting.”

“I know, right?” He grins, but then looks at her more sincerely. “But you still dodge my question, my dear wife.”

“I am _not_ dodging,” she insists, puckering her lips slightly.

“Yes, you _are_. But you can’t have it all. Knight, Lady of the Rock and the Sapphire Isle, Warden, and Farmer…,” Jaime recounts, but Brienne cuts him off this time, “Oh, will you knock it off already?”

“You and I both know I won’t. I thought I have given enough proof of that by now. Remember how stubborn I proved to be when I was still your prisoner?”

“You would not shut up,” Brienne grunts, rolling her eyes at the memory.

“Precisely,” he laughs. “My dear Lady Wife, you should know better than to keep secrets from me. That is unlike you anyway. If there is a good reason that would prevent us from travelling to the Rock, please, do tell me! I would rather stay for a while as well. The constant back and forth, as I said, keeps me off of my most cherished duties. I am aching for a good excuse that you agree with.”

“So that is the only reason why you would want to stay on Tarth?” Brienne snorts.

“Now stop changing topics already.”

“I am just interested,” she argues.

“While I most certainly want nothing more but to spend my days training with you, or staying in bed with you, doing all those things that you cannot even say without blushing like a girl accepting her first courtship, a part of me would just like to have a break every once in a while. I am getting too old for all this,” Jaime tells her. “I mean, back when we came to Tarth, you said that this is supposed to be my home now, too. That these are my people now, too. And… they are. Yet, I don’t spend enough time around them, around the isle. At least I would like to spend more time here, watch things grow… and make sure of it. I never thought I’d feel so much responsibility for people outside my family, yet, here I am. Yet… here we are, trying to grow futures, hoping they won’t wither while we are gone, trying to do the same elsewhere.”

“Yes, growing things is what we do,” she agrees, suddenly averting her gaze. “And it seems that we achieved one rather unexpectedly.”

“Hm? The farmers all said that it’s still in the open whether we can grow the seedlings on this soil after the ambush combined with the sudden, harsh winter. That is the one point why I have a sweaty hand ever since they brought them here,” Jaime argues, furrowing his eyebrows.

“It’s not the seedlings I am speaking of,” Brienne says, still not meeting his gaze.

“Then what…,” he mutters, watching her frown at him, wrestling with herself to find the words.

“It appears that we two… are growing a personal future from now on,” his wife replies, chewing on her lower lip nervously.

“… Does that… does that mean that you are with child?” Jaime asks, blinking repeatedly, suddenly seeing nothing but green.

Brienne nods her head slowly, kicking at some invisible rock. “I talked to the healer again this morning… he says that there is little doubt from now on.”

Actually, there is _no_ doubt that she is now growing right beneath her heart a small future that will hopefully come to bloom, the healer said, _but…_

“Again?” Jaime repeats with a grimace, so she explains, “I wanted to be rather certain before… saying it. Saying it makes it real.”

Words and songs, they have the power to carry from one life to the next, from one heart to another, from one generation to the next, ahead into a future still unknown.

Jaime stares at her, and Brienne is not yet sure what must be on his mind. She cannot read his expression.

“So… you are with child. That is real,” he says, as though he assured himself of that statement.

“That is real,” Brienne agrees.

“We will have a child.”

She nods her head slowly. “If all goes well, then yes, we will likely have a child.”

“This is real.” He blinks.

“This is real, yes.”

Jaime pulls her to himself before Brienne can say only just one more word.

Brienne lets out a small yelp when she feels herself being lifted off the ground by her husband. While she shouldn’t be surprised that he can do it, granted that they both take training still rather seriously even these days, it does catch her off-guard.

“Jaime! Stop that now! Are you mad?!” she shouts.

“Not mad, my dearest wife, but overjoyed!” Jaime laughs, feeling giddy and anxious all the same.

“For that, you don’t have to lift me off the ground,” Brienne pouts.

“Oh, I have to indeed!”

“Now let me down,” she insist, knocking against his arm, the blush on her cheeks spreading all the way to her hears. “The people are already looking over.”

Jaime turns his head over to the farmers they spoke to before they went to stroll along the fields, on which green sparks from the dark soil like little emeralds held into the light of day.

A new day, a new age, at least for Jaime.

“My good men, nothing to worry about me carrying around my wife. The greatest news have just reached me – we are expecting an heir for the Sapphire Isle at last!” he yells in direction of the farmers.

“Jaime!” Brienne calls out, eyes wide in shock, seemingly not pleased that he just shouts it out into the world, but Jaime has to, has to, has to.

“What? It’s as you said, it’s real now, so we better see to it that we make it real. We are going to have a child!” he argues, slowly letting her down, leaving his left arm firmly around her hip to pull her to him.

And that child is his.

There is no doubt that he can say it is his now, as loud as his voice allows. He can scream it, he can shout it, he can call it out from the scarcely green fields all the way to the farmers.  

No one else can claim it but them.

No one else will claim it.

It is hers. It is his.

_It’s ours._

And so the Gods will, Jaime will get a chance he thought he had little chances of getting ever since he joined the Northern cause to defeat the White Walkers – to actually be a father, to hold the child, play with it, raise it, teach it how to ride a horse, how to swing a sword, because, of that Jaime is certain, no matter whether that child is to be born a boy or a girl, it is going to receive the teaching both parents have to offer, and that is that of two knights after all.

He will get to raise a child that is his. No reason to hide anymore, no reason to be hesitant. He can hold his wife up high in the air, and the worst he will get is people’s glances of irritation.

However, looking at the men standing together, leaning on their wooden sticks and pitchforks, their smirks and laughter, it is not so much irritation as it is apparent approval.

“We are having a child!” he calls out again, shouts it out to the world, to himself, his future, so it shall know that this child is going to walk through it once it is born. Jaime cannot even find it in himself to care for the burning sensation in his eyes, joy overtaking him.

He kisses her, then, not finding it in himself to bother to think about how Brienne will scold at him for the public display of affection either, needs her lips, from which such sweet words just poured into the world, fell on what will hopefully prove to be fruitful ground.

In all that responsibility to regrow a world largely destroyed, frozen over by winter, the buds of spring come through at last, and in that, they seem to be granted a strange sort of freedom, the freedom not to care, to take a moment for themselves amidst the green meaning life.

Their future.

“Yes, we are,” Brienne says once they pull away, relishing the sensation of Jaime pressing his forehead against hers, not wanting to break contact yet, or any time soon for all she can tell now.

And while there are some many worries on her mind, about the uncertain future shining before them in faint green, barely making it out of the darkness of the fresh soil, Brienne finds them momentarily shifted to nothing but hope.

She didn’t think she would have children. Brienne didn't have that on her mind even by the time she got wed to Jaime. While of course, one was always aware that it could happen, Brienne somehow pushed it far out of her mind, time and time forgetting that she grew, too, grew a different way than before, no longer just a knight living a loveless life all by herself, with no chance of continuing her father’s lineage, but now a woman still living by most of the virtues knighthood comes with, and coupling that with love in all of its facets, no longer one-sided, but two-sided.

Him and her together.

_I am yours and you are mine… and so the Gods will, we will be that of our child, too._

And somewhere along the way, Brienne missed that with so much change happening all around them, pulling them along, teasing them forward, that she forgot that she ran along, grew as well as others did, not always forward, not always towards the sun, but to the sides, spreading out, growing stronger and stronger roots, and along that path towards the light now has to realize that she did grow into a shape, a flower, she never thought would be hers.

And yet, that is real now.

She grew. They grew, grew together. And out of that now seems to grow the first tender bud of a new future that is theirs to claim, theirs to build.

And whatever the future may hold now, whatever hardships are to come their way, Brienne knows those dangers there, and she dreads them, but now that can feel Jaime’s smile against her cheek as he keeps her close, not wanting to let go, she forgets all about them for a time.

Just like it is during this moment that Brienne feels herself closest to her father as the sun rises higher and higher over the fields, making the seedlings not just look like emeralds in the light, but as though they were glowing and growing to great heights already. Because there is no mystery to the reaction she would get from him, if he were here. He would do what Jaime does, hold her close and be happy, overjoyed.

_Indeed, some many tales I will have to tell you, Father, a song to sing only just for you, about the life still ahead of us, a life that I don’t know of whether you always wanted it for me or not, but, of that I am sure, you will want to hear all about._

But until the day arrived that she will sing that song to him, Brienne wants to enjoy the time as the song keeps getting written, as harmonies keep forming, as futures keep growing.

On the fields and by the Iron Table.

And now, under her heart.

And all she sees is green, green hope, growing lives, making them run forward, into the light.

A Dream of Spring. 


	5. Gold

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jaime takes some time to overlook the harvest. 
> 
> The two have some important discussions about furniture. 
> 
> A harvest feast is in place, and preparations have yet to be made, because this event is most definitely an important celebration.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello everyone, thank you all so very much for your encouraging, kind, and simply amazing comments. You have no idea how much wacky dancing I did for matters of your amazingess. 
> 
> So, yet again, we move away from the order (and I am also a bit late... but real life seemingly doesn't accept JB Week as international holiday, which SUCKS), so that we are now having the golden chapter that should have been for Day 2. 
> 
> I hope you will enjoy this chapter. 
> 
> Much love! ♥♥♥

Jaime leans his forearms on the windowsill, glancing outside, to where the light of the new day just rose above the plains and fields, the groves and forests, the crescent shining like a golden blade of grass rising higher and higher into the air.

He turns his head slightly when he hears the wooden door screech as it opens. A smile flashes over his lips once Jaime sees who comes inside with slower growing steps. Jaime twists around to face towards Brienne as she closes the door behind her silently.

Jaime heard so many anecdotes about how a woman with child has a glow growing within her as the babe keeps doing such right under her heart, though Jaime takes most of that more as flattery than anything else. As Brienne once huffed after a council meeting, “I swear to the Seven above, Jaime, if there is just one more person complimenting me on how well the pregnancy does me and my looks, I will not stop shouting.”

And Jaime is bound to agree, it’s simply what you say, because who wants to poke the Lady of Tarth about the troubles a pregnancy comes with? Most women who end up complimenting her anyway most certainly know that growing a child is not always magical, but comes with morning sickness, comes with sore feet, and all those things that seem to disrupt the image of the glowing mother-to-be.

However, that doesn’t means he does not glow, it’s just not when Brienne is around members of the council, it is during mornings such as theses, when she is still asleep next to him. It’s when the light of a new day breaks through the window and paints the growing curve of her womb like a golden globe containing their little world yet to come into this world, yet to be born. It’s when Jaime catches Brienne stroking her stomach, all by herself. When she doesn't feel like anyone is watching her, because, despite the fact that Brienne admitted to him not long ago that she actually wanted children, just didn’t think she would ever have them, Brienne is rather shy about it.

Perhaps she was even a bit afraid of getting attached to a future of uncertain outcomes.

As far as Jaime understood by now, his wife is still rather frightened that their happiness will not hold. Mostly during the beginning of the pregnancy, Brienne argues that things go too smoothly, that something is bound to go wrong.

“It always did. _Always_. How is that supposed to change all of a sudden?”

Jaime had no answer other than holding her close whenever those thoughts arose, reassuring her again and again that he would fight whatever trouble may come their way, and while that certainly didn’t sweep every doubt out of her, Jaime was relieved to observe that, over time, Brienne seems to have calmed some. The more her belly swelled, the less she went into hiding when she dared to run her fingers over her stomach, over the future yet to come.

And when she does that, she shines brighter than any lump of gold ever could. It is the kind of glow reserved for them and no one else.

“I hope I didn’t rouse you,” Jaime says apologetically as Brienne wobbles closer, because the bad leg proves to give her particular trouble during the pregnancy.

“Oh _please_ , I sleep far too much these days anyway,” Brienne huffs as she covers the distance between them. “The little one will probably not sleep at all once born, because it sleeps along with me so very much.”

Jaime presses a kiss to the corner of her mouth while running his hand over her belly. “It’s going to be a joy.”

“You say so now. I am sure you will whine all the while.”

“I would not.”

“ _Right_. Because you are _not at all_ prone to that.”

Jaime chuckles softly.

“So? What has you wake up at such ungodly hour of the day?” Brienne asks, drawing closer to the windowsill to lean against it. “I was quite surprised to find the other side of the bed empty when I awoke.”

“Apologies for leaving you without your personal cushion, my wife. It was not my intention,” Jaime chuckles, taking up the other half of the windowsill.

“You shall be forgiven.”

“Most kind of you.”

“You still didn't answer my question. It seems to me that my husband is trying to dodge.”

“Oh, not dodging, just enjoying his wife’s presence.”

Brienne shakes her head with a smile, pushing one loose strand of hair behind her ear, tapping the foot of her bad leg on the ground.

“I wanted to appreciate the view,” Jaime explains, nodding outside the window. Brienne turns slowly, until she catches sight of the fields in the distance.

“You know, my father used to say that there is nothing that shines brighter than gold,” Jaime goes on.

“Well, gold _does_ shine.”

“Of course, but look at _this_ and tell me that this does not shine brighter than any lump of gold you have ever set eye upon,” Jaime argues, gesturing out the window, over the brown and green planes, until, at the very end, where the horizon kisses the sky, a sliver of gold shines in the morning sun as though Casterly Rock’s once rich gold mines had all been poured out over the Sapphire Isle’s ground.

“And it’s _far_ more usable than gold,” Brienne says with a grin.

It is still a small miracle that fields now start to bear fruit – and that they can harvest it. Brienne can sometimes hardly believe it when she looks out the windows, walks through the fields shining golden, her hands entwined with Jaime’s.

What was a Dream of Spring seems to have grown into a spring that bears harvest, is no longer a distant concept, a comforting idea, but one that holds futures rather than just offering them.

“I still can’t believe that the harvest mostly turned out alright. Surely, we lost quite a bit thanks to the ground still being so chilled after the Long Night, but it should be enough to ensure everyone has something to eat for a hopefully rather mild winter. After the battle against the living dead, I think we earned ourselves that,” Jaime chimes.

Some fields withered fast, turned back to brown soil, others pushed emeralds to the light, only to have them turn gold far too soon. And for a time, Jaime and Brienne feared that nothing would become of it and they would have to make new arrangements with the Great Council to ensure food to be provided for the people, which would have proved to be an almost impossible task due to the fact that everyone tries to grow futures on the same chilled earth.

However, at last, some survived, grew high into the air, and now they shine like gold at the right time, because they are ready, because they have grown far enough, high enough.

“I don’t think the weather makes exceptions, but I hope for its mildness, too,” Brienne agrees.

“It’s a miracle, isn’t it?” he says with a grin, glancing outside to where wheat and grain keep transforming into goods shining brighter than gold and proving to be far more important than the precious metal, too.

Because all riches mean nothing if you have no food.

Life depends on the simple things.

“If it were a miracle, then that would imply that no one had a part in its coming about, and that couldn’t be further from the truth. The seedlings grew because all worked together, not just here on Tarth, but all around,” Brienne argues.

“The new Warden of the Eyrie still says that they got cheated,” Jaime huffs. He had hoped to get along with everyone on the Great Council, but he also knew that to be wishful thinking. Even with those who stood on the battlefield with him as they fought the dead tend to disagree far more often than he would like it to be the case, but at the same time, as Brienne keeps reminding him, it’s better to disagree than it is to end negotiations and call for the banners.

“We are sending wheat their way, by decree of the Great Council. They should stop complaining,” Brienne huffs, waving with her hand dismissively.

“That is just what I told them. See? It’s high time that you join me again in those boring meetings again. You tell them right to their face what they need to hear,” Jaime laughs. While Brienne travelled to the first council meeting that took place ever since she announced her pregnancy, the two agreed that past a certain point, it was no longer for the child’s good, and why take any chances when the two agree on the political matters in almost all cases anyway?

That is the advantage when you share those values lying at the core of yourself, you now what the other thinks even when he or she isn’t there. It beats in you like a second heart. 

“As though you were shy about the matter,” Brienne huffs. “You never hesitate to state your opinion.”

Jaime chuckles. “I am a Lannister. We mastered the arts of twisting words into songs with a nice ring to them, even though the spite is pouring out of every syllable.”

“Ah, so _that's_ what it is, then,” Brienne snorts in amusement.

“But anyway, we still have to think of a plan so that I can bypass having to meet up with that Warden,” Jaime tells her. Brienne turns in his direction slightly, if with determination. “We already agreed that you would go along to overlook everything. I would not want to leave it to our men to negotiate with the Warden of the Eyrie. He is… rather stubborn.”

“Well, I suppose he feels as though he has to be extra tough because he is one of those elected by the people of the Vale, not of noble birth. I reckon I would be as stubborn as he is if I were in his spot. That doesn’t mean I have to like him, though,” Jaime says, fiddling with the hem of his tunic absently.

“But since you are by now so very well trained in the arts of lying, I think you should be fine,” she suggests with a small smile.

“But I don’t _want_ to leave, wife,” Jaime sighs, leaning his head back, relishing the warmth of the golden sun raining down on his scalp. “You have to try harder to help me think of a solution.”

Brienne shakes her head. “The solution is that you do as it was discussed. You are being ridiculous.”

“ _Ridiculous_?” Jaime calls out in feigned exasperation. “It’s ridiculous to demand of me to go there, even though all know by now that it’s only a matter of time until our child is born. I should be here, seeing to it that everything is set.”

“You drive me insane anyway, so I suppose it might actually be for the best for the child if you… grant me some peace,” Brienne tells him.

Jaime’s mouth opens and closes a few times without a sound, before he goes on to shouts, “ _Some peace_?! Some peace! Here I am, a loving, devoted husband, trying to be there for his wedded wife, and this is how she thanks him! Oh, the Seven are testing me with you as my wife, they are.”

“My sympathies,” she chuckles.

“Now you are just being sarcastic.”

Brienne blinks at him with a smile. “How would you come to _that_ idea?”

Jaime lets out a sigh, chewing on his lower lip, but then adds with much more sincerity, “But now honestly… I don’t want to leave. What if the child comes while I am gone?”

“It won’t come yet,” she assures him. “It’s still some time until.”

“But it _could_ come early,” he insists.

“Well, and if it does, you will arrive to a newly born child without having to suffer through my cursing your name for ever getting me into such a situation – because you can be certain that I will do just that,” Brienne argues. “Think about it.”

_That is a bloody business after all._

“As though that would bother me. You curse my name since the day we met,” he jokes.

“You know how I mean it,” she replies with a grimace.

“I do, but it’s… I _want_ to be there. I need to.”

He was there when his other children were born, but none he got to hold. And Jaime wants to hold that child when it's born, he has to, has to.

“And you will be. The Eyrie is not that far away. By ship, it’s not such a long voyage to undertake. Needless to mention that we now have better ships thanks to Theon having given us some of the construction plans that they use for the Iron Fleet. That means the ship travels even faster than it usually would.”

Jaime pinches the bridge of his nose, tapping his left foot on the ground to release some of the tension building up inside his body whenever he thinks of the mere possibility that the child may be born while he is gone, or that something may happen to it while he is elsewhere.

“Shouldn’t you be the one to be nervous and upset and fussing about everything?” he comments with a grimace.

Brienne shrugs, puckering her lips. “I wait till the last moment, I assume. And then at full force.”

She _is_ nervous, without a doubt. Brienne can no longer count the times she woke up in the middle of the night once the child started moving inside her, shocked when it happened for the first time, and then ever the more anxious at too much movement – or the lack thereof.

While Brienne spoke with the healer plenty of times, and got some advice from the mothers whom they talked to for matters of the farms and guilds, all of whom had some many things to tell her, some of which she would rather do without. Though Brienne was nonetheless grateful for the support she was met with. Her Lady Mother didn’t live long enough to give her solid advice on the matter, and Brienne starts to trust whatever it is that her Septa used to tell her when still a young girl less and less these days. Thus, getting some words of reassurance and those coming from experience are welcome despite the fact that Brienne still has to get accustomed to the idea that the people are so supportive of her.

She still remembers the times when she was a child, freakish tall and looking more like a boy than a girl, and the people had nothing but silent glances to spare for a child that just would not fit in, despite its noble birth.

However, despite the fact that she enjoys support from people who are still more or less strangers to her, after all the time she spent away from home, chasing a knight’s life, chasing honor, fighting in wars, and barely making it out each time, Brienne remains anxious.

And yet, perhaps the calmness she just recently discovered in herself when Jaime received the news that he would have to go to the Eyrie, actually comes from her husband’s increasing nervousness.

They are opposites in that way, have always been, two sides of the same blade of Valyrian steel.

And so, it may be for the best if Jaime keeps fussing about the small things, so that Brienne herself doesn’t have to.

_At least not as much._

“That sounds very much like you indeed. It would be a pity if you turned away from all of your usual ways,” Jaime chuckles.

Though he actually doubts that this could ever happen. Brienne of Tarth, at the core, is unaffected by world’s troubles, strong, something steady in a world always on the move. No matter the troubles sent her way, at heart, Brienne stays who she is, and Jaime is glad for it, because it is just that woman he ell in love with.

_She is my calm sea in a stormy ocean, easy as that._

“I am just waiting for the time when I can pick up the sword again,” Brienne groans, leaning her head to the side. Her fingers twitch just thinking about it. She sadly had to stop wrapping the sword around her waist ever since her belly decided to exceed the measure of the belt, and it started to feel uncomfortable.

“That is seriously what is on your mind most?” Jaime laughs.

“That actually surprises you?” she huffs.

He has never known her any other way, has he?

“ _Actually_ … not,” Jaime snickers. “I caught you often enough, running your hands over Oathkeeper with longing.”

“Just my point. Now that we enjoy a time where we don’t have to swing swords to fight for our lives, I have to realize that I simply enjoy… the task itself,” Brienne says mindfully.

It took her some time to rediscover it, after having to use it to slay dead things and monsters with it, struggling for survival itself. But once Brienne picked up the sword again just for the fun of it, only just to train, only just to feel the familiar weight in her hand, listen to the familiar song of two blades colliding, she rediscovered something she had forgotten, the joy of it. The joy she felt already as a young girl, when her father finally permitted her to train swordfight as well, and Goodwin gave Brienne her first lessons.

However, now that she no longer has the freedom to take part in that joy, Brienne had to realize just how much she misses carrying around the sword and swinging it in the training yard.

_It’s as people say, you have to lose something in order to learn of its worth to you._

“Fret not, my dear. Soon enough, you will knock everyone into the dust again, except for me, of course,” Jaime says, winking at her.

“Oh _please_ , before I had to take a break so not to endanger the child, I was _still_ beating you,” she argues.

“You were _not_ beating me.”

Brienne cocks an eyebrow at him. “If you want to believe that.”

“That is not a question of faith. You should remember that one time I cut right past your defenses. You lied on your back like a turtle,” Jaime recounts, holding his head a little higher.

“You seem to confuse that with my current state as I try to roll out of bed,” Brienne snorts. While there are some thing she enjoys about the pregnancy itself, other than the obvious prospect of their first child, which makes her heart flutter so very often that she lost count of that, too, the lack of mobility is driving her nearly insane.

Brienne was an active child. She was always a woman who exercised, who was on the move. And to suddenly waddle around as though someone tied her feet together is not in the least helping her mood.

“You do it with so much grace,” Jaime tells her, brushing his stump against her forearm with a grin.

“You have your fun for as long as it lasts,” she huffs.

“Oh, you have no idea just how much I enjoy all of this.”

Because Jaime does. He was so very used to spending his life at the margins of others, of Cersei’s, of that of their children, of the Kings he served, the people he protected, even though they’d only ever know him as the Kingslayer, and not as the man who prevented wildfire to fill the city far before the day that his sister discovered the green weapon to use to her own advantages.

However, over time, Jaime realized that he no longer is at the margins. He is right within the life now his. Jaime is a warden now, someone people turn to for advice in all earnest. He is not just given a title so to carry out tasks for the Crown. He can kiss his wife in public as he please… well, so long she does agree with it, the woman is rather stubborn on the matter… he no longer has to hide.

Certainly, there are still people who would rather have him off the isle, there are people who don’t want him on the Great Council. Jaime heard the whispers often enough as they came to King’s Landing, the shouts for the Kingslayer not being worthy of the service. That he should give up the position as Warden of the Rock. That he is not worthy of the titles or the responsibilities it comes with.

And inside his mind, he was tempted to agree, until he felt Brienne grab his hand. He turned his head away from the crowds, then, over to his wife, her eyes not on him, but ahead, her head held high, as though he meant to tell them without a single word spoken that this was their path to travel now, and that they would not step aside just because they yelled it at them.

And that was when Jaime knew that, with her, he didn’t have to hide anymore, because by her side, he is walking towards the future hopefully serving them all, even if the people have yet to put some faith in what the Great Council does, and what the two do on that council.

Only time will show what shape that future will bear, and whether all those plans that sound oh so promising will prove g enough pillars to hold a world still in the making, but for now, something grew, for now, something worked. And no matter the glances, no matter the many times “Kingslayer” will echo through the streets, Jaime knows that true, Jaime can see it shining at him like the most precious gold, shining in the rising sun, announcing a new day.

“For that, you complain quite a lot,” Brienne snorts.

“I would never dare complain about appreciating my wife,” he answers. “Now you get me all wrong, wench.”

She rolls her eyes at him, turning her gaze back to the chamber, the golden light falling on the back of her head, blurring out the edges of her unruly curls, which she did not bother styling back yet, creating something akin to a halo around her scalp.

“So you still think that the harvest feast is a necessary thing? I mean, we lost enough crops already,” Brienne asks, looking back over her shoulder, over the fields shining like gold poured out over black soil.

“The people worked hard, without relent. There should be some sort of reward and celebration for them and their efforts. One feast is not going to consume all of the crops we will harvest,” Jaime argues. “And in any case, I think we can all use the distraction well. Remember how cheerful people were during the wedding feast? It could not harm to revive that spirit.”

He leans a little closer with a teasing grin tugging at his lips. “Or we could just have another wedding celebration. I would not at all mind saying my vows again.”

“I think it will be enough to have the harvest feast, and then the namesday celebration for the child once it is born,” she says, which earns her another smirk from her husband.

Brienne had to practice for a rather long while, actually, to say “ _once_ the child is born” and not “ _if_ the child is born.” At first, Jaime always corrected her, almost insistent, but over time, Brienne forced herself to say it, moved her lips silently as she stroked her swelling belly until it rolled from her tongue with increasing ease.

While Brienne still feels uncertainty clutch at her more often than she would like to admit, she had to realize over Jaime’s almost stubborn insistence that she does not use that wording that it actually is necessary to have some faith in the future shining at them golden in the distance.

 _I chased Lady Sansa, not having a clue where to turn, no single beam of light to guide me, and I found her anyway, two times_.

Perhaps it is as Jaime keeps telling her “You have to dare to let happiness happen, or else you will spend your days worrying about what won’t be, and if you worry just hard enough, it will not be, because it’s no future you embrace. It’s about our future, and that we choose it.”

And she chose. Brienne chose when she kissed Jaime in a dark hallway short before the battle began. She chose when she admitted her feelings to him amidst smoke and ashes, under a gray sky. She chose when she said “yes” to Jaime’s proposal. She chose when the Septon tied their left hands and they said the words, meaning every single one of them.

Because, truth be told, Brienne has not found any reason yet to believe for only just a moment that she made the wrong choices, so long it refers to those decisions. Because Brienne cannot remember the last time she was that happy, that much at peace, and that despite the fact that everything around them is I a constant shift, a constant struggle to keep the realms together, to keep their people fed and ready for any danger and hardship being carried to them through cold winds and over barren ground.

So, Brienne started to say to herself again and again that so long their choices are not wrong, so long there is nothing to regret about them, then whatever fruit they will bear, they will harvest it, and live with the yield they will be provided.

And in any case, the future is coming closer with every kick, with every move of that small being growing within her, whether they are ready for it or not.

Futures are unpredictable in that way.

And perhaps, that is the good thing about futures, that they surprise you, that they sweep you off your feet when you least expect it.

_Or else, life would be one dull walk._

“Oh, you can take any bet that the namesday celebration is going to be enormous no matter what. Tyrion will see to that, as the uncle,” Jaime chuckles.

At some point, he tends to believe that Tyrion is about as excited about the child as he is, even if only just almost. Jaime almost broke out laughing once he realized that the frequency of his brother’s letters sent to the Sapphire Isle almost tripled. So that, among with the letters concerning the politics and troubles of the Great Council, more and more personal notes slipped in-between, asking about the Lady of the Rock’s wellbeing, whether temporarily moving to the capitol would be advantageous so that Brienne wouldn’t have too travel too much, or I she would perhaps rather not come along at all until the child is born… One particular scroll had Jaime laugh so had that the ravens started flying away, in which his little brother made a list of things he could send from the Rock so that “my nephew or niece has all comforts available in uncomfortable times such as these.”

Though Jaime long since began to understand that his younger brother is actually just chasing the family he almost lost. Tyrion once mentioned to him that among the many things he came to regret, his involvement in Myrcella’s death was what weighed most heavy on his mind.

“Back when I talked to Cersei after the White Walker demonstration… she tried to blame me for both Myrcella’s and Tommen’s death. That I was the only one responsible,” Tyrion said to him during their last visit at the Rock, words muttered over golden cups of wine, sitting by the fireplace.

“Tommen wasn’t on you.”

Jaime learned that over time, because Cersei never gave the answers to the questions that burned deep within him after he learned about her youngest son’s demise. It was her, because she made him watch as she used that one thing that Jaime hoped would stay forgotten in the catacombs beneath the city, so to never be found again. Because she wanted to teach him a lesson after his betrayal, like she wanted to teach Jaime a lesson for his betrayal. Jaime knows he is not without blame in this. He could have tried harder, should have tried harder, maybe shouldn’t even have left to Riverrun, but Tyrion was hardly at fault for Tommen’s death. He was across the Narrow Sea.

“Perhaps not, but he may well have been, had he sat the throne by the time we had set across to Westeros… and I cannot say what would have become of him then, I couldn’t have guaranteed his safety no matter how much I loved that boy anyway… and that… is a shameful thing to admit.”

Jaime said nothing, then, just took another sip of wine.

“So… back when Cersei said that, I said to myself inside my head that she was wrong, but in the end… on that one thing, she may have spoken some truth, because I stopped protecting them. I was too caught up in my own troubles, in playing the political games in the hope of winning them. And there was a time when they weren’t even on my mind. Seven Hells, Jaime, I even worked with the woman who killed Myrcella. I collaborated with her. I hated her guts, trust me in this. I just kept my mouth sealed because…,” Tyrion went on, but then paused, so Jaime completed, “Because we don’t make peace with our friends but with our enemies.”

“That is at least the excuse I wanted to give to myself… but I abandoned my family. I abandoned it when I killed Father. And that is not even about Father or Joffrey… or Cersei… but you and Tommen and Myrcella… I abandoned you… I abandoned my own family and chased the old game, just in Essos instead of Westeros.”

Jaime just listened, he remembers. At some point, he grew accustomed that when his little brother, the belly filled with wine, would let out some truths and feelings he normally knows to keep hidden behind his sharp tongue, cutting comments, and goblets of wine. And so, Jaime developed the habit to mostly let his brother do the talking, and take for himself what he would have asked otherwise. It may take longer, but it doesn’t cut as deep, it isn’t forced.

Some wounds take longer to heal, and as it appears, we actually have that time now.

“I don't want to make that same mistake ever again,” his younger brother then said, without a doubt meaning every syllable, every letter.

“Then just don’t,” was the older brother’s simple advice.

“And I would like to actually be an uncle again, not just in terms of titles, but… you and Brienne, and so the Gods will, that child… you are my family. And I want to play a role in that family again.”

“Then just do.”

And so he did, and so he does now.

Even if it starts to irritate not just Jaime, but also his wife. Because it appears that the future uncle is trying a bit too hard as of late.

“Speaking of, I did not know that it fell under the responsibility of the uncle to put together the nursery,” Brienne snorts, nodding at the room. With the last ship that arrived with goods from the Rock, almost half of it turned out to be furniture and all kinds of things for no one but the child yet to be born.

Jaime tilts his head to the side, following his wife’s gaze. “It would be disrespectful to send some of it back, right?”

“Absolutely. And you will never lose a word about it. He means it well,” she lectures him.

“You said that the rocking chair was the ugliest piece of furniture you ever laid eyes upon,” Jaime huffs, gesturing at said chair, sitting in the left corner. “To quote you: ‘It's even worse than the Iron Throne back in the day.’”

“I did not say that it’s _ugly_ , I said that it’s over-decorated, past the point of what taste permits,” Brienne argues. Though if she were to speak her mind openly, she would have to say that Brienne finds some of the pieces about just dreadful. Far too many golden swirls, flowers, metal bent into the face of lions bent into crescent moons and sunbursts.

“Well, the engraved lions were done rather realistically,” Jaime comments, leaning his head to the side as well.

“ _Precisely_. Which is why we will do nothing but thank your brother for the courtesy of having some of those things specially made for us, or otherwise sent us furniture from his own nursery when he was still a child,” Brienne answers, nodding her head.

“But do we really have to put up the small portrait he had made… of himself?” Jaime grimaces, nodding to one of the walls where there now hangs a small portrait of his younger brother.”

“Well, you read the note that was attached to it. Since Tyrion cannot always be on Tarth, he wants the child to see his face so that it can remember its uncle,” Brienne replies. “While I don’t think it works like that, do you sincerely believe I will raise that issue with your brother? After all the support he provides for us?”

Jaime snorts at that. “It can’t harm to beat sense into him every once in a while.”

“You will be very nice to him the next time we meet, you will thank him, and you will not lose a single word about how exorbitant some of the things are,” Brienne scolds him.

“My oh so honorable lady has spoken.”

“Your oh so honorable lady just minds good tone.”

Jaime looks back at her with a grin. “I seem to recall when you forgot all good tone and told me to fuck loyalty. Such dirty language.”

Brienne shrugs her broad shoulders, unable to hide a small smile as well, “There is a time and place for everything. And be honest to yourself, you needed someone to tell you just that.”

It’s curious how far away those days seem as of late.

At some point, it feels as though they live another life now, and when they go back to those memories where they found themselves standing on opposite sides belong to a realm they are no longer part of.

“Oh, I needed it most certainly, and I needed you to say it,” Jaime laughs. “I mean, it’s no great secret, is it? That I need you?”

He chuckles when she leans a little closer with a small smile tugging at her lips. Gladly, Brienne grows more and more comfortable in showing and permitting to be shown the affects they bear for one another.

_Though she could not yet be convinced of the grove, sadly…_

“No great secret,” she agrees. “Though it was for a rather long time, just like the reverse was hidden… for a long time, at least we two tried our best to keep it hidden.”

“True.”

“But what matters is that it came to the light at last,” Brienne says, looking at the nursery with too much decoration, shining so brightly that it almost blinds her. Though then again, perhaps it’s actually the prospect of their future blinding her, the prospect that one of these days, their child will sleep in that monstrosity of golden swirls and splendor.

_And I can’t seem to wait._

“True again,” Jaime snickers.

Brienne tilts her head to the side, then. “Though I can’t help but wonder.”

“Yes?”

“Is that bed your brother’s, or did he have it manufactured?” she asks.

“It is a bit… over the top,” Jaime says, making a face, craning his neck.

“So it is not his?” Brienne questions.

“I actually think it is. It’s just that he… added…,” he replies, gesturing at the nursery with his left hand. Brienne grimaces at that, tilting her head further to the side.  “… more gold.”

“Yes. And I didn’t even think that was possible,” he agrees.

“But apparently it is. It’s a miracle the boat with which it came didn’t sink,” she huffs.

“That would have been an expensive shipwreck… though that also means we should not ship it back by any means. Who knows if it’s going to sink next time?” Jaime laugh.

She shrugs. “We will have to keep it.”

“And if not, we may take it apart, sell the gold and…,” Jaime means to say, but Brienne cuts him off before he can develop the thought, “We will only do that if it’s necessary for our people. But as of now, we have enough in the treasuries, so… that bed stays. To say it once more, I will not explain that to your brother.”

“I suppose Tyrion just wants to make sure that our child will grow to be a true Lannister, surrounded by all of that Lannister gold.”

“And he will spoil that child,” Brienne chuckles.

“Without a doubt.”

“And you?” she asks.

“If I am going to spoil that child? What do you think?”

She grins at him, readjusting her stance to put less pressure on her leg. “Without a doubt, you will.”

“How do you come to that conclusion?” he laughs.

“You already talk that child senseless, and it’s not even born yet,” Brienne explains.

Almost every time Jaime is gone during the day, and they lie in bed after yet another busy day as Lord and Lady of Tarth, he will lean his head on her stomach and tell their child about all that went on, though he insists that he is not telling his Lady Wife, but only just his child. “A man has to keep some secrets between himself and his offspring, you know?”

“I just want to be sure the child knows me,” Jaime chuckles, though he couldn’t speak truer from the bottom of his heart with that. He wants that child to know him, he wants that child to know him as its father, he wants to be that child’s father, care for it, hold it, play with it, show it the world, and not just lurk in the shadows as it grows, never knowing its father’s name.

“And you make fun of Tyrion for the portrait?” she teases.

“By all means. That is how we show love. I make dwarf jokes, he makes one-handed man jokes. Now he makes fun of my becoming a father, while I make fun of him acting like one our aunts whom we all hated because she was all over us whenever she came by.”

Brienne rolls her eyes at him. “I long since gave up trying to make sense of your relationship.”

“It makes no sense, but that is the thing with love… it oftentimes bears without any sort of reason,” Jaime replies with a smirk.

“Tell me about it, I am in love with you, despite the fact that you are so very unreasonable, which makes me unreasonable in turn.”

“And isn’t that what you actually love about me, too?” he snickers, tapping his index finger on the back of her hand.

“You wished,” she scoffs.

“Well, I have other qualities then that even you have to attest for,” Jaime hums, leaning a little closer with his playful smirk that Brienne knows oh too well when he wants to lure her into the bedchamber.

“You are a man of so many talents,” she says, rolling her eyes.

“You know, you could at least _try_ to sound as though you meant what you said.”

“I _could_.”

Jaime grins, shaking his head as he pulls slightly away again. His wife’s growing boldness is yet another thing that makes him think that this is indeed their dream of spring, because nothing does he love more than the confidence, the ease burgeoning in Brienne, after she spent such a long time trying to hide any self-consciousness that didn’t stem from her strong arm or prowess with the sword.

Brienne of Tarth, at last, starts to be confident in herself as a person rather than as herself as a fighter, and considering what talents he knows she inherits, it’s a true bliss for this world that, at last, she makes use of the weapons she kept so far locked away that even Brienne did no longer know of them standing in the armory inside her heart.

“Well, and since I am a man of so many talents, don’t you think my gifts are wasted on a ship to the Eyrie to converse with that mule of a man about something that the Great Council long since ruled?” Jaime then says.

“Not _that_ again,” she groans. “You are going to go and you should finally get it out of your head that you can slack off the duty. We promised. And we don’t promise easily, remember?”

“That you always have to tie this back to my honor,” he grumbles. “I just want to be home and be with my wife. Who if not me is going to look after you?”

“The maids, the council, Pod…,” Brienne replies, counting with her fingers for him to see.

“But no one can look after you the way I can,” Jaime argues.

“As unbelievable as it may seem, I can bear without you for a short while, my dear husband,” Brienne exhales.

Though he has the rights of it in that regard – no one looks after her the way Jaime does. It’s in those little gestures of having a hand to her back when she climbs the stairs on her rather unsteady feet these days, not saying anything, just being there without forcing his assistance upon her. It’s when he wraps his arms around her when she stands by the window, brooding about the many troubles that still come their way thanks to the reconstruction proving to be about as difficult as it was to unite the forces in the North to fight the living dead – and that seemed like an impossible task already. It’s when he kisses her when she won’t admit yet that she missed him, after another journey away from the isle.

_It’s him, simply him, always only him._

“What? _Lies_! You will absolutely hate it when I am gone. You will sit by that window, watch outside and hope that I will come riding up to the castle,” Jaime argues, pointing out the window, over the shining plains and fields.

“If I want to watch out the window, I should do that by our chamber, because from _there_ , I can see the port. From _here_ , I see nothing but the fields.”

“I almost forgot that my lady wife has a fancy for sapphires rather than gold,” he chuckles.

“I am native to these isles, so _of course_ I have a greater fancy for the blue seas instead of… golden nurseries,” Brienne points out to him.

“Well, perhaps something good comes of it when I leave for a while,” he sighs.

“Which is?” she asks, blinking.

“That you will realize how terribly you are going to miss me, so that when I return, you won’t let go of me again, and you will be hungry for me like you have never been before.”

Brienne shrugs with a grin. “Miracles happen.”

“I thought miracles are nonsense.”

“No one worked hard for that to happen, though, in contrast to the fields bearing fruit now. So I tend to think that to be more miraculous than our crop growing,” she explains.

“See? Even _that_ is not at all impossible anymore. More miraculous things can happen than seedlings growing strong on frozen ground,” Jaime laughs easily. “It’s all a matter of perspective.”

“So you will stop complaining about travelling to the Vale?” she questions, though Brienne fears she already knows the answer.

“I _could_ …,” he replies with a smirk, mimicking her tone from earlier. Brienne rolls her eyes at him yet again.

“It’s truly high time that the child is born, so that I can beat some sense back into you in the training yard,” Brienne huffs, pushing away from the windowsill and the warm light of the morning sun brushing against her back. She waddles closer to the nursery.

“To pick up the sword again, you mean.”

“That, too.” She nods.

Jaime pushes away from the window as well, only ever a few steps behind his wife. “Fret not, my lady. I may actually have a solution to satisfy some of that need.”

“If you mean to suggest something along the lines of martial duties right now, be sure I will hit you,” she warns him, facing towards him over her shoulder.

“You do no me no justice, though of course, I wouldn’t be at all opposed to the idea.”

“You wanted to say?” she asks.

“Hm? I am not going to tell you just yet. It will be a surprise,” he chimes, looking _utterly_ pleased with himself, much to Brienne’s annoyance.

“I don’t like your surprises,” she huffs.

“No, you _love_ them.”

“And when are you going to share that great secret with me?” she questions.

“Once time arises,” he hums to a song only Jaime knows at this point of time.

“But _when_ is that?” Brienne demands.

“I will let you know…,” he says, stepping right behind her to whisper in a darker voice, “Unless you convince me otherwise.”

“Well, then I will have to wait, as it seems,” she exhales. 

Jaime embraces her from behind, pressing the palm of his left hand and the stump of his right against the sides of her stomach. He kisses her in the nape of the neck. “It’s only a matter of time.”

“You are going to the Vale. I will have to wait for your grand secret to unfold… and until then, we have a feast to organize,” she summarizes, relishing the sensation of his hands against her, holding the future growing within her between stump and hand. Brienne never thought that she would no longer find herself having to beg for affections, chasing them, saving them over the years to feast upon them when times are unbearable. So long he lets it happen, and so long she returns the affection, Brienne can now be certain without a doubt, that those touches will keep coming to her – and won’t ever leave again.

“And here I thought you needed more sleep,” he chuckles.

“Quite on the contrary, I need to do something so that I don’t sleep all the while,” she replies, putting her right hand over his stump to give it an affectionate squeeze.

Because she wants to be wide awake, so not to waste any more time than is necessary.

Because Brienne doesn’t want to miss only just a single moment.

Because life is too precious to be spent neglecting.

It’s too precious to spend hidden.

It’s too much worth, worth more than any gold may ever weigh, to spend in denial, spend hesitant, when you can also make a leap forward to see gold growing on the fields, can see it filtering through your husband’s hair, can feel it shining at your fingertips as you run your hands over an overly decorated nursery.

Life is just too precious to be wasted. And you only see the value of the moment glistening like pieces of gold in the distance once you have felt it in your heart what it’s like to have futures ripped away from you, to see how they are ripped away from others close to you, or even those you barely knew, as they fell to death at the cold hands of the undead, fell victim to the war for the living.

“Are we meeting with the council today again?” he asks, his nose buried in the nape of her neck.

Brienne turns her head slightly, enjoying the tickling of his beard against her skin. “Did you even pay attention during the last meeting?”

“Not really. I was distracted by you. As always,” he replies, pressing a lazy kiss to the tip of her shoulder.

“I won’t take the blame for your lack of discipline,” she reminds him.

“So, when are we meeting?”

“You figure that out yourself.”

“And what are we doing now?” he asks.

“Breaking fast, and then we will make preparations for your journey to the Vale,” Brienne declares, to which her husband only ever groans, “And here I thought you would give me at least a bit of a break to make myself believe that maybe you won’t force me to go.”

“Think about it, the faster you set sail, the earlier you are back,” Brienne argues.

“You might have the rights of it. Futures don’t grow themselves,” he says, pulling away from her neck after leaving one more peck there. Brienne instinctively keeps hold of his stump as they turn away from the blinding nursery.

“No, they don’t. They are not miracles in that way… though they are nevertheless… miraculous.”

They start to walk towards the door, her hand still wrapped around his stump, but then look back at the golden room that shines in that color not just by virtue of the furniture within, but also thanks to the light shining in through the window, making all edges soft and vibrant.

“Maybe we can cover the bed with cloth,” Brienne thinks out loud.

“Good idea,” Jaime chuckles. “We can take those off whenever Tyrion arrives. He wouldn't ever know.”

“But isn’t that lying?” She grimaces.

“That is… trying our best not to blind our child with gold once it’s born. It may pose danger to Tyrion’s nephew or niece. I am certain he wouldn’t want that. Golden ages await us even without a nursery made of that precious metal,” Jaime argues.

“Oh, _golden ages_ , you say? How are you so sure about that?” Brienne snorts.

“Because I will keep calling it like that until it sticks. That’s how it goes with legends and the big names. They know me as the Kingslayer. Maybe if I keep calling myself another way, that will stick as well,” he laughs.

“Such as?”

Jaime runs his fingers over his bearded chin, contemplating. “I don’t know. Warden of the West may be too unspecific. Oh, what do you think of Goldenhand the Just?”

“For that you forget to wear that thing far too often these days. It’d seem to me that my husband grew quite sick of the color already,” Brienne huffs, amused.

_Though it does have a nice ring to it…_

“Only on occasion. But you may have the rights of it, Goldenhand the Just may be… a bit over the top, like the nursery, and Gods forbid that I fall for the same golden disease,” Jaime says with a grin.

“Then what would you be liked to be called?” she asks.

“Jaime. Just Jaime…”

“I think we can do that,” Brienne laughs – because she finds that by far most fitting. “After all, we have an entire golden age left to make that name echo over the decades yet to come.”

“That has a nice ring to it. Though we still have to think of a name for you to make it resonate throughout the centuries,” Jaime laughs.

“I would rather have you _not_.”

“We can no longer stick to the Maid of Tarth. You are no maiden anymore,” Jaime argues, playfully bumping his hip against hers. “So that title seems outdated.”

“Stop it already,” she pouts.

“Brienne the Beauty?”

“I will hit you, and you know it.”

“Well, you are the Evenstar of Tarth now, so perhaps that will stick,” he replies, rolling his shoulders.

“I think Brienne is fine,” she concludes.

“Perhaps you are right. We keep it rather simple anyway.”

“Safe for the golden nurseries.”

“Safe for those, yes.”

* * *

To Brienne, it is still something that fills her with wonder just how easily music and life returned to Evenfall Hall after the massive destruction of both the isle and the castle. When she first saw the holes in the stone walls, the partly collapsed towers and burned banners, she thought that all music and life had died along with her father. However, already their wedding feast made her see and hear that life can be brought back even to the desolate places.

Back when they got wed, no one even seemed to care for the massive hole in the ceiling that they did not have the materials yet to repair it by the time they held the feast.

And with the candles lit, the lanterns hanging from the wall, to paint golden, orange streaks of light onto gray stone, flickering at unpredictable rhythms, Brienne finds herself back in time, back to namesdays held in her honor where singers and artists from all across the realm arrived to perform, back to her father’s traditional harvest feasts held after every successful harvest where entire Evenfall Hall was full with long tables, stuffed with bread baked from the first yield, broken and shared as the music kept playing and ale kept flowing, back to his speeches, which had everyone’s attention when he only ever raised his voice, how his white hair turned golden in the light of the candles, how his smile seemed to be of light itself.

As it appears, reviving some things is not as hard as they are believed to be, or as hard as Brienne believed them to be. She never thought that life would come back to the halls, that death would linger, hiding in the corners, lurking from the shadows. However, as of late, Brienne found that the candles do indeed bring forth shadows from the past, from the dead, but the messages seem far happier, like small performances of shadow theater, lasting only seconds at a time, but enough to hold alive memories rather than despairing over them.

And she must say, looking through the hall right at this moment, it is hardly any different from the harvest feasts her father hosted. Just that it was Jaime who organized it all. While he consulted her on some many matters, Brienne was surprised just how similar he set everything up without even knowing about it, never having asked about the matter.

As it appears, the new Lord of Tarth grows into his role far faster than people tended to believe when he came to the isle.

“M’lady?”

Brienne turns her head away from the feast, the people laughing, chatting and drinking, over to her squire, who stands next to her, looking as nervous as he did on the first day they were introduced.

“Yes?” she answers, blinking as she brings her mind back to what is happening around her instead of getting lost in the old songs and shadow plays of the past.

“Uhm, did Ser, I mean _Lord_ Jaime mention anything about when we will begin…?” Pod asks, chewing on his lower lip nervously.

“He didn’t say anything to me. He finds it funny to make it a surprise, but I reckon it can’t be long until,” Brienne replies, tapping her arm against his forearm once, offering a reassuring smirk.

Podrick truly matured ever since Jaime introduced her to her new squire, and over time, he grew into a gallant young man. While Pod is still rather clumsy most of his time, Brienne was pleased to observe just how far the lad already came, and she likes to think that, at the very least, she played _some_ small part in it.

It only ever dawned on her just how much he had matured when Pod winded up by the Sapphire Isle for the first time.

_But that seems to be thing, you don’t see things growing when you are standing right next to them, day in, day out._

Brienne spent her time watching Podrick, training him, observing him as he learned and grew. It was a gradual process, and that meant that every time he matured, she was right there with him, supported him the best she could by showing him how to defend himself, _most definitely not coddling him_ , she knows. But instead, Brienne gave her best to teach him the skills necessary to fend off even White Walkers meaning to open his throat. She tried to make Pod independent, so that he would not be lost even if she had lost her life on their shared journey somewhere along the way. And so, Brienne saw Podrick perhaps as much less matured than he actually was by the time she and Jaime set sail to Tarth for the first time, whereas Pod when to the Rock with Tyrion.

“But there is no need to be nervous,” Brienne goes on. “If Jaime dares to misbehave in any way, you know that he will get it from me, in front of all people here.”

Tonight is his night to shine as brightly as the fields from which they harvested golden fruit.

“Oh, that’s not what I worry about, m’lady, it’s rather… I hope I won’t do anything wrong,” Pod replies, rubbing his hand over the back of his head with a sheepish smile and a light cough.

And it is during those moments that Brienne sees the young lad before her again who called her “ser” by accident, who would not let off even when she tried to send him away for his own good, and who was truly miserable with the sword until she had to rethink that opinion once she saw a few ounces of talent hiding in that black-haired boy who shared in one of her dreams for the longest of times.

Because no matter how much Pod may look like a man now, his heart is still that of the squire she took into her services, if begrudgingly.

_And I am glad for it._

“Pod, you fought against the dead and won. You managed to squire for me without running off. You took up with Jaime demanding any service of you that came to his wicked mind. You really think that _this_ will be the challenge you cannot accomplish?” she argues.

The young man smirks at her, squinting his eyes. “I am forever glad to be your squire.”

“From this night forth, you will no longer be,” she replies with a smirk.

“At heart, I will always be, m’lady.”

Brienne taps his arm another time, feeling the quiver. “Help yourself to some more wine, that may ease your nerves. We can’t have you a shaking mess, right?”

“I would not want to cut myself for that reason, no,” he agrees, letting out a nervous snicker.

“But just one cup. Being drunk for that matters isn’t any better,” Brienne warns him.

“Aye, m’lady,"

Brienne chuckles as she leans her chin on her hands, searching the great hall shining golden in the candlelight, looking as though it was made of the precious metal itself.

 _Father surely would have loved to be here_ , she thinks to herself with far less bitterness than she ever anticipated when they first discussed holding the harvest feast. _He would want it to be like this, and that is all that matters_.

At last, she finds the person she was looking for in the crowd, talking to his “favorite farmer in all of Westeros,” who, like him, lost a hand. Though Garth lost his left hand already at a young age when he swung a sickle the wrong way. It never surprised Brienne that Jaime befriended that man with ease, now all the while joking about the lives as one-handed men. She tends to think at times that Jaime befriended that man also because he has a nature similar to Ser Bronn’s back in the day. He, too, never held back his criticism or his sharp tongue inside his mouth, and Garth is just the same, never seeming to care about Jaime’s rank – or feelings for that matter.

_And that may serve him well. He needs someone beside me to tell him those uncomfortable truths every once in a while._

As if on cue, the two men break out laughing, clapping each other on the backs. Brienne knows herself the very best that her husband has quite a captivating smile once he allows it to come to the surface, and just like she dares to let more smiles come to the light now that the harvest is over and it turned out not the almost bad, Jaime seems far more at ease smiling, laughing, joking with their people.

_He is home, after all._

“I can’t remember the last time someone called me Kingslayer around here,” he noted one morning, still lying in bed, arms folded behind his head, a ridiculous smirk spreading across his face. “And truth be told, I never knew just how… uplifting that can be.”

Jaime turns around slightly, instantly catching his wife’s gaze, and flashes another smile at her that seems ever the brighter in the warm light of the candles. He excuses himself before making his way up to their table.

“Is everything alright, my lady?” Jaime asks, leaning over the back of her chair.

“Just about perfect,” she answers. I hope you didn’t feel like you had to check on me. You seemed to enjoy yourself alright, talking to your friend.”

“I am well aware that you can handle yourself without your dear husband, if only for a time,” Jaime chuckles. “But that doesn’t mean I can handle myself without my wife. I came to miss you oh so terribly already.”

He brushes his index finger against the side of her cheek, granting her a small smile.

“Pod is getting really nervous. You shouldn’t keep him waiting for much longer,” Brienne tells him, nodding over to the mess of a young man still trying to drink ale without spilling it.

Jaime wrinkles his nose, following her gaze. “You might be right… He managed to put on the tunic with the back in the front and the front in the back, you know?”

“Just my point,” Brienne replies, chuckling softly.

Jaime reaches across the table to grab his golden cup of wine. “Would you be so kind, dear wife? The lack of a second hand can be troubling to grab attention.”

Brienne shakes her head with a grin before she picks up fork and cup and starts to beat them against each other to let the sound ring throughout the room. After a few beats, the people start to look to the front, over to Jaime standing there with cup raised, and all people take their seats, falling silent.

Jaime sucks in a deep breath before calling out in a voice that fills the entire great hall, “My dear friends, tonight is a night where we celebrate all of us. Without you, this harvest feast would be… rather sad, and would likely consist of nothing but wild berries and perhaps some squirrel…”

Some people chuckle, some murmur, but all eyes remain on their Lord of Tarth.

“Truly, without you, there would have been no spring, there would have been no harvest to feed our children, our people with. It is thanks to your good, hard work that the Sapphire Isle comes back to bloom after the horrors it and its people suffered,” Jaime goes on, taking a moment to pause. “And we are blessed, truly blessed, that you gave us two the trust to let us guide you, and that we were allowed to trust you in turn to lead us where we knew no further. Because, let’s be honest, I don’t know anything about harvest, let alone how to plough a field or swing a sickle. I’d likely take off my other hand if I ever tried.”

Again, the people laugh along, just like Brienne does. She simply enjoys seeing that it wasn’t just her who arrived at home here, but that Jaime actually found his place not only right next to her, but with their people.

_He is right at the heart of the isle just like he is at the center of mine._

“Thus, without further prelude, I want to raise my glass to you, my friends, for your hard work, your guidance and support, your trust and forgiveness, your patience and confidence, in the hope that we will have many fruitful springs together following this harvest. Let us all drink to the future!” Jaime calls out, holding up his golden goblet, the others following the movement.

“To the Lord and Lady of Tarth!” Garth then shouts rather loudly, which everyone joins in with a loud “cheers.”

Jaime flashes a smirk, still not quite believing himself that this is his present now, and will most likely be his future. For a man who abandoned his life as a lord, he is now one, and Jaime must say, it feels good, it feels right, and he would not want it any other way ever again.

“Now, my friends, there is one other thing to celebrate tonight. Harvest feasts tell a tale of maturity. Green seedlings grew into strong, golden crops,” Jaime goes on once the crowd has calmed a bit again. “And this harvest feast is also meant to mark the maturity of a young man who has found his way into our community, too. He has proven himself as a brave fighter during the Long Night, and protected the realm at the risk of his own life. And then he came he came to the isle – and since that day, has been laboring just as hard to earn his spot amongst your ranks. And I believe the day has arrived at last that he rises above the title of the squire to that which he worked for so very hard. Wouldn’t you agree?”

The people tap their cups against the wooden tables.

“Podrick Payne, please step forth,” Jaime calls out, and the raven-haired young man hastily makes his way back to their table. In the meantime, the Lord of Tarth leans down to whisper to Brienne, “If my wife were so kind to assist me once more?”

“With what now?” she asks, furrowing her eyebrows.

“Just come,” he mutters, holding out his hand to her. Brienne takes it with a frown and stands up, which takes her a moment thanks to the big belly. Brienne searches Podrick’s eyes, because the lad can still hide nothing from me, even if he tried, but he looks just as confused as she does.

Because they discussed before that Jaime would finally use the opportunity to knight Pod – she cannot, lacking the title, and the gender, as the rules have it.

They motion back from the tables so that all can see them. Brienne still tries to read her husband’s expression, but fails completely. So she just stands there, perplex, waiting for Jaime to act, to speak, to somehow give away the game.

“Podrick, please kneel down,” Jaime says, his tone light, but nonetheless filled with a spirit of dignity that comes with such a ceremony.

The young man drops to his knees almost instantly, and both Brienne and Jaime are sure that this left bruises.

Brienne only now notices her maid approaching with… _Oathkeeper_. Her irritation only ever rises deep in the pit of her stomach, because Jaime has Widow’s Wail wrapped around his waist, _as he should_ , so even if he meant to use the sword for some reason beyond her comprehension, he could at least have asked her first. Brienne doesn’t like it when he sword is taken without her consent. For that, it means too much to her.

_It's yours. It will always be yours._

Jaime takes the sword from the young maid, offering gentle smile. “Thank you.”

The maid nods, before stepping back again. Brienne blinks when Jaime suddenly holds out the sword to her. “I am short a hand, so it would be most kind of you if you handed that in my name while I say the words, my lady.”

It is only then that Brienne understands, his words by the golden nursery echoing in the back of her head.

Her husband actually has the best of surprises after all.

Brienne takes the sword, feeling its familiar weight. She tightens her grip on the golden hilt. She only ever regains some certainty when Pod dares to raise his gaze to hers to look at her in approval, flashing a small smirk before ducking his head again. Brienne lowers the blade on her former squire’s shoulder, first the right, then left as Jaime starts to say the words: “Podrick of House Payne. In the name of the Warrior I charge you to be brave. In the name of the Father I charge you to be just. In the name of the Mother I charge you to defend the young and the innocent. In the name of the Maid I charge you to protect all women.”

“I promise that I will.”

“Arise, Ser Podrick Payne.”

Pod gets back to his feet, beaming at the two as though his greatest dream just became reality, though perhaps, that’s really what it is. He turns around, and the people start to cheer, calling his name, clinking cups together as the music starts to play again.

“Thank you, my lord, my lady,” Pod says, bowing his head again and again, visibly overtaken by the joy of finally having the title he dreamed to have for so many years now.

“We thank you. And now celebrate yourself, Pod. You earned it,” Jaime says, giving the young man’s shoulder a gentle squeeze before giving him a light push towards the other people drinking and singing. And Pod has little choice as Garth drapes his arm around him, thrusting a cup of ale into his hand, shouting out to the other men standing there that he is a man now.

“You know, that was not how it’s traditionally done,” Brienne says, her eyes still on Podrick as he starts to walk away, a new swing in his steps.

“I don’t care about tradition. You should know that about me, my lady,” Jaime huffs with a grin, watching Podrick as well. “That was the only way that it was… _just_.”

“How so?” she asks.

Jaime rolls his shoulders. “He was always your squire.”

“And I am no knight.”

He turns around to her. “Brienne of Tarth, you are a knight in all but title. Truth be told, I have never met a truer knight than you, and I have met many, way too many. It may be that I cannot knight you by virtue of the rules, but that doesn’t mean that the Lady of Tarth cannot give her Lord Husband a hand in her squire’s knighting ceremony. Who is going to object anyway?”

“No one,” she says slowly.

No one will object, no one bothers, all approve, the music is still playing.

It's curious how easy the impossible can be at times.

“… Thank you for that,” she whispers.

“I told you, didn’t I? That I would find a way for you to wield the sword for good?” he says with a grin.

“You did indeed,” Brienne is bound to agree.

“And so, Oathkeeper is now a true knight’s blade the same way, after it finally had the opportunity to knight someone,” Jaime announces in a bit of a dramatic voice.

“Pod will be a fantastic master-at-arms,” Brienne sighs.

Jaime blinks at her. “Oh, he didn’t tell me about that.”

“That is because he does not know about that new task,” Brienne replies with a grin.

It’s a plan she had in a long time, but now that Pod bears the title, it only seems right that he bears both privilege and responsibility towards the isle he says he wants to spend the rest of his days at.

“So I am not the only one having surprises?” Jaime chuckles.

“No. Life is far too boring without them.”

She leans closer to press a kiss to the corner of his mouth. “Or so my husband keeps telling me.”

“As he keeps telling you that it’s a golden age.”

“Well, looking at this now,” Brienne says, looking down on the hall painted golden with life itself. “This may very well be the beginning.”


	6. Ruby

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jaime is on his way back from his trip to the Eyrie, after having learned some things about his new ally, which may well help bridge the way even over to that part of the realm. 
> 
> Once he arrives, news await him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello everyone, thanks for reading and commenting and kudoing. You are so precious to me, you don't even know how much. 
> 
> I am sorry for the bit of a delay, but the last two chapters are consuming more time than I thought they would. But I hope to deliver the last installment soon enough. 
> 
> I hope you will enjoy this chapter. 
> 
> Much love! ♥♥♥

The first time Jaime travelled to Tarth after the Long Night, he can still remember how he internally dreaded coming to the isle, not knowing what to expect. It was not the slights he was afraid of, Jaime knows better than letting people’s comments cut at his skin, it wasn’t even being criticized for his involvement with Cersei, even less so the blame Jaime knew was likely to come his way.

Foremost, he found his guts twisting into a tight knot at the thought that the people of Tarth would blame _Brienne_ for her involvement with the Kingslayer of all people. He was afraid that she would bear his mark, his stain, his shame, though she had no part in it, other than loving him and granting Jaime to love her in turn.

And so, while he did not admit it to Brienne by the time, Jaime was more than anxious to come to the isle, and whenever the captain of the ship taking them there said that they had to go slower because of an “unfortunate turn of the wind,” Jaime actually exhaled in relief in all secret.

However, now that the slights of the people have become echoes, some of which are now even filled with friendly mockery, Jaime cannot seem to get back to Tarth fast enough, finds his mind rushing, urging to be home.

 _Home_.

Even more so because everything took far too long at the Eyrie, at least to Jaime’s liking. Truth be told, setting sail while his wife stood by the jetty, waving at him with one hand, holding on to her belly with the other, Jaime wanted nothing but jump off the ship again and yell at the men to go on without him.

_Though I am sure that if I had tried, Brienne would have dragged me to the boat herself._

And deep down, Jaime know that it was necessary that he went.

It is especially important to negotiate with the wardens he doesn’t know personally, has not fought alongside with in the great war against the living dead. Jaime has a better understanding of those people who raised their swords with him, was forced to gain it as they discussed battle tactics, verbally wrestled with past and a fragile future, having to let go of old animosities in favor of the future hiding behind a silver lining. While that didn’t give place only to love and appreciation for one another, it created a mutual understanding born amidst a battlefield of ash and blood, a kind of respect that was necessary and still proves to be necessary in a world that relies on peace.

If there is no peace, there is war. If there is war, people lose their lives, crops are destroyed, food vanishes, more people lose their lives, and then they will not even require the White Walkers to threaten all of their lives, because they will well do that gruesome deed themselves.

However, with the new wardens elected, Jaime had to realize it is hard to find a common ground at times. They aimed towards “diversity,” as Tyrion called it, and thus have amongst their ranks not just those of noble blood, but those whose fathers and mothers were farmers, who were knighted by hedgeknights, or used to be a merchant.

Though Jaime knows that things won’t change so long they do not find that common ground to stand upon, walk upon – to the future waiting, shuffling its feet.  

Thus, sadly, Jaime’s dear lady wife still had the rights of it to demand of him that he goes to the Eyrie personally, to flat out some of the ground still made of barren rocks and trampled on soil. It’s not just done with sending food. They have to get to know these people the same way Jaime had to learn about these his people now on Tarth. Even if it’s hard, _even if it annoying at times, many times_ , even if that means that he has to spend some time away from his wife, it is necessary.

And truly, if slaying Aerys was necessary, if fighting in the North was, then negotiating with some stubborn men who yet have to learn to have faith in the Kingslayer, then Jaime is ready for that without a doubt. That is _nothing_ in comparison to what he had to sacrifice. It is _nothing_ compared to the things he had to do to serve his duty towards the realm and its people.

_Which doesn’t make it any less bothersome, however._

Though Jaime remains in the good hope that something changed at last. Because if he is not mistaken, there was the hint of approval on the older man’s face as they unloaded the bags of wheat and sacks of flour. And it was on that occasion that Jaime figured the one reason that may be driving the Warden of the Eyrie with greater force than he ever anticipated: Because it was only then that Jaime saw the surly looking man holding rather tightly the small hand of a young girl whose eyes shined brighter than any blade of Valyrian steel in the sun ever could.

As it turned out, the young girl with fire in her hair is the warden’s granddaughter whom Ser Howard is to raise now, since his son left his life in the great war against the living dead, whereas the son’s wife left her life defending her child when White Walkers swarmed further South than they ever wanted it to happen, but could not prevent – until the beasts stepped on King’s Landing’s soil and went up in a cloud of green fire, which, for the first time for all Jaime got to know, served a good purpose, served life rather than destroying it.

However, it was as Jaime bent down to speak to the young girl who pulled on his coat to ask him how he had his hand made golden that he understood the Warden of the Vale far better than likely either one ever imagined.

Because suddenly, there seemed to be a small path of flat soil to walk upon.  

_We fight for our loved ones. We do anything within our powers to know them safe._

If that means being an uncomfortable negotiation partner, then that is so, and Jaime understood that, still understands that, knowing that he likely would not act much different if he were in the Ser’s positions.

And that is what Jaime then told the elected warden in a more private moment, high up in the Eyrie, the little girl roaming around the great hall, pretending to fly like a bird.

“As high as honor! As high as honor!” she kept shouting as she spun round and round to a melody only she knew of.

“She has taken the house words of House Arryn quite to heart,” Ser Howard said, suddenly offering smiles that Jaime did not spot during the council meetings. And he mentally had to curse his wife for having been right on that matter, too, as it appeared, because she told Jaime before he went that he will likely discover good in the man that he has not laid eyes upon before “because people can surprise you. I should be able to tell. I married a man who was not at all what he first seemed to be.”

“As she should,” Jaime only ever said with a smirk, watching the girl twirl and play. “The house words have a nice ring to them – and as my dear Lady Wife would tend to agree, honor is an important virtue we should all live by and teach our children from a young age.”

He watched the child with a strange sort of satisfaction. While Jaime is not responsible towards her in that way, it was and is reassuring to see that there is now a chance for children to laugh and play, even in spaces that once were occupied only by the royals. That children can grow up in the world they try to build with the Great Council – and that it doesn’t stop short at golden fields with wheat and grain, but actually reaches “as high as honor.”

“I suppose I am spoiling her too much anyway,” the warden replied, his eyes also set on the ginger girl whose temperament, so Jaime learned, is about as fiery as her hair.

“She seems to do just fine,” Jaime assured the man. “Who knows? Maybe she will succeed to her grandfather’s honor one of these days and become the next warden.”

“I hope not. Politics are messy business I would rather keep her out of. I have enough headaches thanks to them,” Ser Howard laughed, sipping more wine.

“Messy most definitely, but also necessary.”

“True,” the older man agreed. “But we have to try our best to make things right – for her and all the others.”

“Grandfather! Can I get metal hand like him? I want one of silver!” the child then cried out, pointing at Jaime’s hand, which he had in his lap.

Jaime broke out laughing then, pleased to hear that it seems to be true after all, that children look at the world in another way. Children are far better at seeing past people’s scars and blemishes, their disabilities and shortcomings.

Through a child’s eyes, even a golden hand can seem like the most interesting toy to play with. And so, Jaime had little trouble letting the girl play around with it. In fact, it felt strangely good to him to think that there were other uses to his golden hand than covering the lack of his sword hand, to smack and dodge, to fight.

And Jaime can’t wait to see what his child will make of it.

And it is _that_ child and its mother Jaime feels eager to return to. Jaime long since lost count of the many times he paced up and down the length of the boat, hoping that somehow, the winds will blow harder, that the ship will cut through the water with more ease.

 _Just that the winds do not turn in your favor when you ask them to_ , Jaime well knows. _Which is why you have to take matters into your own hands… well hand, for that matter._

And that is what he did before he departed from Tarth to set sail further up North. Jaime was with Brienne in their chamber, he can still recall quite vividly. The evening sun had already disappeared halfway below the horizon, painting the entire room shades of red that made the stone of the walls seem far warmer than it actually was to the touch. Just before, Jaime had managed to convince his lady wife of taking a break – which Brienne despises with a burning passion, even now, or perhaps even more so as of late. Brienne of Tarth, no matter what, doesn’t like to be told what to do and when to do it after all.

And most of the time, he respects that, but when Jaime sees Brienne wincing under every step because the added weight does no good to her leg, then Jaime believes it actually his duty to tell his stubborn wife to catch a break.

“I mean, you heard the healer, you heard Sam yet again during the last council meeting you attended and he _obviously_ had to give his advices as a maester, now lord: You can either grant your leg the rest, or reconsider using a cane.”

That only ever had her glower at him, but on this very matter, Jaime knows he is right, so he had and has no trouble insisting – just like on that occasion.

Jaime rather wished Brienne would not have to bother with those matters. He would want her to be happy not just on occasion, but all the time. He would rather have the greatest of her troubles being sore feet after a long day instead of chronic pains that linger. But apparently, bad legs are like missing hands, they don’t heal easily, they always leave an echo of what was once there.

However, Jaime does not posses the power to alter the winds, he has no magic that could heal her leg, or make the pain fade from her that he feels in his own limbs whenever Brienne seems particularly pained.

There is no way of changing the past, Jaime has to keep reminding himself whenever he sees Brienne struggle, whenever he has to bite down his wish to do it all for her, so she can do it herself.

There is only a way of accustoming to new circumstances, getting used to them, learning to live with them.

“My bad leg aside, is everything packed up already?” Brienne then went on, surely in the hope to distract from said leg, because, of that Jaime is aware, his wife tends to keep some of those troubles to herself.

“Safe for the Kingslayer, everything is onboard already,” he laughed, looking out the window, which glowed red in the evening sun.

“Since when are you back to calling yourself that?”

She shrugged. “I found it funny.”

“Don't make a habit of it,” she told him, with surprising urgency.

“You made a habit of calling me just that back when you were supposed to bring me to King’s Landing, remember?” he joked, but it was no joking matter to her, he could see it right in her big blue eyes.

“I do remember,” she replied. “But things have changed now.”

“Well, apparently, the fact that I slew Aerys did not change.”

“But _you_ changed.”

And apparently, that is all that matters.

“In any case,” he sighed with a smile. “All preparations are made. If all goes _well_ , I will _have to_ set sail tomorrow.”

“You won’t stop lamenting about the matter, will you?”

“There are some things I won’t ever change, so no,” he replied, turning around to her, Brienne’s hair looking almost orange in the red light. “But I wanted to show to you something before I forget about it. To hear your opinion.”

“Do I have to be afraid for yet another unexpected surprise?” she huffed.

“No,” he chuckled, coming closer.

Brienne narrowed her eyes at him, then. “And what you want to show me is not in your breech? Because you made that joke once, and we both know I hit you very hard for it.”

“You almost took off my arm,” he laughed.

“My point exactly.”

“I mean, I can _always_ show you what I have in my breeches, but…,” he meant to say, but she cut him off. “You wanted to show me something entirely else.”

“True again, sometimes the opportunity of being with my dear lady wife leaves my mind adrift,” Jaime answered. “Though I know I am blessed with a wife whose appetite lasts well until now.”

He gave her a playful look that only had Brienne roll her eyes at him. “You wanted to show me something, still, my dear lord husband.”

“Ah yes, in fact,” he laughed as he came to stand in front of her, his shadow dancing over her form. Brienne sat up on the bed as he took the object out of his pocket to hold against the crimson light of the setting sun. Brienne frowned at the amulet dangling from a golden chain.

“I had this made for our child,” Jaime went on to explain, surprisingly sheepish all of a sudden. “A ruby from my sword, a protective charm, I hope.”

“And you make fun of your brother’s fancy for gold?” she replied, cocking an eyebrow at him as she allowed her fingers to trace the smooth surface of the charm dangling between them, the facets painting light spots on the walls, as though they were dancing.

“The ruby is far bigger than the gold. And _I_ am the child’s father. I get to spoil it all I want,” Jaime argued, chuckling, but then looked at her with more sincerity. “So you think it’s… a good idea? You know I am not superstitious.”

“Which is why this actually comes as a rather big surprise to me.”

Jaime shrugged, then. “I don’t know. It’s just… I fancied the idea that our child would come to carry something that is mine.”

“That seems far more understandable to me.”

“Does it?” he asked, surprised.

“I like the idea, a lot. Though it leaves me wondering what you did to replace the gemstone thus removed from your sword,” Brienne replied, tilting her head to the side. “After all, it was an integral part of the design.”

“I had the smith replace it.”

“With what?”

“Something to carry around with _me_ as a protective charm, too.”

She frowned. “Which would be?”

Jaime leaned over to kiss her, then, her lips blood red in the light of the evening sun, feeling warm, tender, and welcoming. “You remember when you gave me that sapphire in a jest, telling me that this is perhaps the one sapphire in all of the Sapphire Isle that is bigger than a crystal for embroidery – after I once lied about how Tarth was full of sapphires?”

“I seem to recall,” she laughed against his lips, pressing another peck to his mouth.

“Well, that sapphire found a good use, then. Because from now on, that sword will only remind me ever the more of you,” Jaime laughed. “Once the smith is done.”

“So my sword bears Lannister red and yours Tarth blue.”

“Fitting, isn’t it?”

“Most fitting indeed.”

The sailors’ shouts rip Jaime out of his memories bathed in liquid rubies and the light of a setting sun back to the blue waters of his new home. He blinks, trying to regain focus. Time suddenly seems to have passed much faster.

_Perhaps the winds are in my favor every once in a while after all, so long I don't bother to wait for it._

It is curious to watch as the sailors start to roam, jump off decks, yell out commands, pull levers, and turn canvases, because it stands in such stark contrast to the tranquility surrounding the isle.

When Jaime first came to Tarth, he feared he would go insane at the lack of sounds ringing at all times, because he was so used to it during his times in the capitol, but over time, he had to realize that tranquility, calmness, ease are far more to his appetite than the self-proclaimed hotspur of the family ever gave himself credit for.

He thought he was the Warrior, he thought he was a man of war, but now it appears that he is the Father, a man of peace.

_Rarely do we get the lives we think we will – and for that, I am glad._

It feels as though an entire life is spent on attaching the ropes, making sure the boat does not crash against the jetty.

Jaime is just about to make orders for where to put the boxes and all that they brought back from the Eyrie when suddenly, Tarth’s recently appointed master-at-arms comes riding down the small valley leading towards the port.

“Podrick, I did not expect such urgency for you to come and greet me,” Jaime laughs as the young man comes closer with fast strides.

“Lord Jaime! At last you are here,” Pod says breathlessly as he covers the last bit of distance between them.

“We are even earlier than could be estimated,” Jaime laughs, clapping the lad on the upper arm.

“My lord, you have to ride to the castle at once.”

“What? Why? I was just about to oversee…,” Jaime means to say, but Podrick cuts him off, ”M’lady is in labor, has been for the past few hours.”

Jaime’s eyes open wide at that, the rushing of the waves no longer ringing in his ears, only the echo of Pod’s words flitting across his mind.

“Is she alright?” he asks, fright taking his breath away, making his arms go limp, his feet heavy on the soft soil.

“It’s earlier than was expected, the healer said, so I don’t know. I rode out as soon as I saw the ship coming to the port. Here, you can take my horse. I will take care of everything here,” Podrick urges.

Jaime’s mind is racing while his body seems achingly slow, time changing and shifting shape too many rounds this very day, too fast when he would want to go slow, too slow when he wants it to go fast.

The Lord of Tarth gives Pod’s shoulder a squeeze absent-mindedly, taking the reins from the younger man’s gloved hand. He mounts the white stallion as fast as his feet carry him. Jaime already wants to say something, but Pod just smacks the horse on the rear to make it leap forward, and Jaime is glad for it, because truly, he has no time to lose now, whether it is fast or slow, he cannot lose it, he has to win it, use it.

He takes a tight grip on the reins as he pushes the white horse as it gallops over moist, green grass, Evenfall Hall always in sight, to where future may be born or come to fall.

“C’mon, boy,” Jaime mutters to the stallion as he gives it the spurs another time. “We have to go home, fast!”

When Jaime reaches the castle, he almost flies off the horse, just yelling at the man approaching to take care of it as he starts to rush inside, pushing open big, wooden doors as though they were made of parchment. He hurries down hallways, missing his step once or twice.

The whole castle seems to be an uproar, maids and servants rushing around like upset chickens. Jaime leaves them aside, his steps leading him up the narrow staircase, past painted windows that reflect red speckles on the ground, leaving them to dance in the setting sun.

 _Like blood_.

Jaime shakes his head, pushing the sickening thoughts far, far out of his mind, as he keeps going a little faster, until he comes to their chamber’s door.

“My lord, you are here! We already feared that…,” Brienne’s maid calls out when he approaches, but that is when Jaime can hear Brienne’s voice from behind the closed door.

“If you excused…,” he means to say, but she interrupt with wide eyes, “But my lord, wouldn’t you rather wait outside?”

“No, I will wait right within, thank you,” Jaime replies resolutely before making his way inside without further prelude.

_I am done waiting. I won’t ever wait again. I won’t keep out. Ever. Ever. Ever._

Jaime finds himself momentarily blinded by the amount of red which is not part of the Lannister décor that meets him, smears on white sheets, tantalizing patterns, the midwife’s hand glistening with the liquid which looks like molten rubies.

For a moment, he is right back on the battlefield, the smell of coppery blood flooding his nostrils, the sight of the crimson cracking his mind open to have images of people they cared for dying as they were taken down by arrow, scythe, or sword in the battle against the living dead. Jaime can feel the chilling sensation of fear right in his blood, to the point that he fears this life essence keeping his body running will freeze to red crystals.

_People who say that being or becoming a mother is not comparable to fighting in a war are plain as day mistaken. This is a battlefield, just another kind._

“Jaime.”

He tears his gaze around to find familiar blue in all that uncanny red, and that seems to snap Jaime out of memories that should no longer come back, he knows, so that Jaime can finally move his feet again, his strides gaining speed and confidence upon every step, until he reached her.

Jaime sits down on the side of the bed, nostrils flaring, eyes only just on Brienne.

“You are here,” she mutters under ragged breaths, sweat covering her forehead, glistening like shards of glass. “Took you… long enough.”

He laughs at that, pressing a kiss to her temple. “Apologies, my lady. I had to carry out my wife’s orders of going to the Eyrie after all.”

“Doesn’t matter. You are here,” Brienne says, trying to control her breathing.

 _Thank the Seven_ , she thinks to herself.

“Right, I am here,” Jaime agrees, before turning to the midwife. “How is she? How is the child?”

The black-haired Morgan turns her gaze to Jaime, rubbing her hands together against a piece of cloth to remove some of the red sticking to her palms.

“It wants to come a bit early, and it doesn’t quite want to turn the way I need it to just yet, but as I already told the lady, I got them all, even those who first try to make a big entrance, only to shy away again. Morgan catches all of them,” the midwife replies. She gives Brienne a small look of assurance before her hands disappear under the cotton sheets over Brienne’s lap again.

“We never talked about names, you know,” Brienne then says, followed by a moan as her body starts shifting again, announcing the next wave of contractions.

“What?” Jaime asks, blinking, turning his attention back to his wife.

_Names?!_

“Names. Yes. We never talked about what we… what we want to name the child,” Brienne says hurriedly, puffing.

“And _now_ you want to start thinking about it?”

“And we want to push again, Lady Brienne,” Morgan interrupts, her voice even, calm, all the things that Jaime is not, though he would like to be.

Brienne screws her eyes shut, letting out a feral growl as she tries to do as the midwife tells her. She heard of the pains, she heard of the blood, but right at this moment, Brienne cannot deny that she would rather have her dear Lady Mother alive to provide assurance – because that woman brought her siblings and her safely into this world.

_And I have to bring it into the world just as safely, even if it is coming too early, too fast. Despite the fact that every contraction feels as though it lasts an eternity._

“Yes,” Brienne goes on, eyes still screwed shut as she tries to push that child into the world, into life. “Because I am currently… trying to distract myself from _this_ here.”

Jaime looks around nervously, trying to order his mind, his thoughts, though failing rather miserably at the task.

“Oh, uhm, alright then. Names it is…,” he stutters. “Boy’s names first?”

“Just start! Ahhh!” Brienne shouts as she pushes again.

“You don’t want to name it after my father, do you?” Jaime asks nervously.

“Gods no.”

“After _your_ father?”

“I don’t want them to have the same names as my family did.”

“That means Galladon is also off the table… Steffon?”

“Isn’t that one of your cousin’s names?”

“… I think.”

“Carlisle? It’s supposed to mean ‘strong,’ I believe?” he suggests.

Brienne shakes her head, groaning. “Too long.”

“And we push again, my lady,” Morgan interrupts.

“Brian? It means ‘noble’?” Jaime goes on, his eyes dancing back and forth between Brienne and the midwife’s expression, hoping to somehow read good or bad news in her gaze, but that woman know show to keep her thoughts to herself, her eyes only ever on the child she wants to catch.

“Brian, son of Brienne. _Right_. Ahhhh.”

“We really should have thought about that beforehand,” Jaime mutters.

_Why didn’t we?!_

“We should have done some many things,” Brienne grounds out as she keeps pushing, pushing, pushing.

“Well, maybe we will do it right next time,” he says, to which Brienne turns her head in his direction, wet streaks of hair falling into her face. “You are out of your mind to think about another child right as I have to get this one out. Ugh.”

She leans her head back again as another wave comes rushing through her, _hard_.

Because, while Brienne hopes for that child, wants that child, wants it so very much, she could well do without all this here.

_Seven Hells. Seven Heavens. He count himself lucky that I don't kill him for making me a child._

“I was just trying to suggest…,” Jaime mutters, but Brienne won’t have any of it, snarling through gritted teeth, “You will lose the other hand if you finish whatever comment you have in mind now.”

“Maybe we will delay both discussions until later. I could tell you about the negotiation with Ser Howard of the Eyrie?” Jaime suggests instead, hoping that this may calm her nerves.

Brienne looks back at him, finding her heart beat somewhat faster with relief as the contraction washes out, and with it, the prospect of a distraction rising like a boat on a high wave. “I will now say a sentence you likely won’t ever hear of me again: Just keep talking.”

And so Jaime does, recounting whatever of the voyage and the negotiations comes to mind. Ser Howard’s granddaughter and the golden hand. How he managed to slip on a puddle when back on the ship, all the while keeping behind her to steady Brienne as she keeps pushing their child into this world, past all the red around them.

“You have too keep up the leg, my lady, or else I can’t see a thing,” Morgan says. Brienne looks at her, blinking, her heart suddenly sinking at that.

_That leg may be damned. Not now!_

She tries to angle it again, but that makes her see stars for a moment. That position is really no good. Her leg feels partly detached, while at the same time hurting about as bad as one of the contractions.

Brienne finds fear clutching at her, then. Because she can’t even seem to be able to hold up her leg, _Seven Hells_.

She tried to push those unspoken fears to the back of her head all the while, tried to focus on golden fields, on harvest feasts, red mornings and evenings, sitting by the window, waiting for Jaime’s return, for his kisses, his touches, the look of hope in his eyes. Brienne didn’t want to think about how her stupid leg may stand in the way now, how the child may not turn this way or the other. She didn’t want to think about it, even when she did, Brienne tried to push away, stay away.

But the future doesn’t care whether you are ready or not.

It doesn’t care whether you want it to happen or not.

The future doesn’t wait, doesn’t slow down.

The future wants to be born.

Ready or not, it is coming, swept out on a boat, sailing on liquid rubies, even with the log of a leg is in the way.

Brienne is ripped out of her thoughts when she feels Jaime’s hand on her leg, pulling it up, steadying it. She looks over her shoulder with eyes wide open. Jaime says nothing, just holds on a little tighter, just like she tightens her grip around his stump.

Because that is when she remembers that even in that moment, she is not alone.

Jaime is here, and he will move that log out of the way, he will jump into the ocean to clear the path for their future to come into this world.

Just like she will hold on to the anchor without its arms that he tosses at her.

Together, they make it through any storm, any tide, back to safe shore.

“Push, one more time, one more time!”

And then there is a noise, a shout, ringing higher than any gull flying by the ships cutting through the ocean.

Life saying “yes” to itself, screaming out, screaming loud.

Yes. Yes. Yes.

Blue and red and covered in white and sprinkles of crimson, loud, alive, taking its first breaths.

“An Evenstar is born, my lady, my lord. A little girl.”

Brienne sinks against Jaime’s chest, all tension leaving her for a moment. She never thought she would be in this room in that fashion, cushioned on white linen colored red, trying to bring life into this world. Brienne thought she would live and die a knight in all but title. She thought her father would have to ensure that the next generation of her people is guaranteed, remarry, or take himself a mistress to have a child with who could inherit the title.

And yet, there she is, small arms fidgeting around, wrapped in linen, trying to grab the world with tiny fingers.

“Jaime?”

“Yes?”

“Go hold her,” Brienne urges him, looking at her rather frozen husband, who does nothing but stare at the bundle in Morgan’s arms.

 _Because this is important, so important. This matters_. Brienne knows.

Jaime brushes his hand over her shoulder as he gets up from the bed, letting out a shaky breath as he makes one tentative step after the other, surprised with the sudden hesitation of his. Because inside his mind, Jaime thought he would rush up there at once, would be certain in his movements, but right at this moment, it feels as though he forgot how to walk, as though this were his first steps in life.

He watches as Morgan takes up one of the red velvet blankets set aside to wrap around the child before she holds the bundle out to him. Jaime blinks as he feels the weight in his arms, somewhat familiar, yet totally strange.

For a moment, he fears that his missing hand will make it hard for him to balance their daughter on his arm, but the bundle seems to fit right into the space between his missing hand and his chest.

“Hello,” is all he gets past his lips, studying that small, wrinkled face with blood red lips and smears of ruby over the fine, golden hairs still sticking snugly to the scalp.

_Perfection has curious shapes._

Jaime turns around slowly, surprising himself with how easily he finds a rhythm to gently rock the child with, and walks back over to Brienne, whose eyes are on him and their daughter the whole time, which, in turn, surprises him with the sudden ease reflecting in her big blue eyes, anxiety washed away for once, replaced by nothing but hope, which came sailing on a red wave.

He sits down on the side of the bed again, leans over so that the red velvet bundle containing their small world is right between them. Brienne reaches out with a shaky hand to run her index finger over the child’s cheek.

“What do you think?” she asks.

“That it’s safe to say that this is the best day of my life,” Jaime says, unable to wipe the smile off his face. “Thanks to you – and her. She seems to be a fighter just like her mother, for which I am glad. And what do you think?”

“I don’t think anything. I just feel… happy,” Brienne says, her eyes fixed on the child, their child, Jaime’s and hers, their future, snug in a bundle of crimson and velvet, moving, alive, breathing, in this world, no longer a distant dream, but right there, right for her to touch, to hold.

_And never let go again._

“Me, too,” Jaime says, his eyes stinging with unshed tears.

His child to hold, his child to love.

Brienne’s child to kiss, Brienne’s child to live for.

_Ours. Ours. Ours._

“I think I have a name, though,” Brienne says, her voice no more than a whispers, almost too hesitant to raise her voice, so not disturb the peace covered in red right between them, beating like a second heart in both their chests.

“And what name is that?” Jaime ask softly.

“Hope.”

“Hope. Yes. That’s who and what she is. Hope.”

Jaime leans his head against Brienne’s, looking at their future, their hope, starting to move, taking shape, and finding its voice as it goes on gurgling and wailing, covered in red, wrapped in crimson, and one of these days likely bearing a ruby around the neck, so that she will always know and see that she has a place, a space within her parents’ hearts, which are now beating for her.

_You are yours._

_You are mine._

_You are hers._

_You are his._

_You are ours to keep, ours to hold, ours to love._

_And that we promise, we will._

_Always._


	7. Valyrian Steel

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Brienne spends some time at the armory, lost in thought and memory, until future comes to her in some many shapes, in the face of the people she loves.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello everyone, thanks for sticking around even though I kept you waiting with the final chapter for so very long.
> 
> To offer a brief explanation that partly led up to it is this: Life has been crap for me for quite some time, especially after a tragedy in the family. That made writing this chapter... more problematic than I ever thought, but now that some time has passed, I finally found my muse back to wrap up this chapter and thereby this story. 
> 
> I hope you are going to like the last installment. Thanks for staying with me throughout that journey. 
> 
> Much love! ♥♥♥

Brienne can still remember that Tarth’s armory always held a special kind of magic to her, even before she took up sword and mace once her father allowed her to train with Goodwin. Because by that time, Brienne also fancied dresses, she liked singing, dancing, enjoyed the way the silks whirled when she spun around until she was dizzy from the continuous rotation. Brienne liked all those things she later on denied herself after her septa told her time and time again that it made her look ridiculous. It was only later that Brienne discovered the true beauty of warhammers and shields, the sheer elegance that lays deeply hidden inside the shining blades, the pure grace of the dance of swords. However, already before she saw the beauty in these things, learned of their secret magic, young Brienne was fascinated by the armory to the point that she could not keep away from the treasures hidden in the vaults beneath Evenfall Hall.

Numerous times Brienne ventured through the chambers beneath the earth, stole inside the armories she always saw as treasuries instead, when her father did not know she had slipped away to here yet again, because he had forbidden her to go there without someone accompanying her, afraid that his daughter may end up hurting herself.

Which only ever encouraged her to go ever the more, _of course_. Children see the greatest thrill in doing the things they are not supposed to do, see the things that are hidden out of view, take that bit of a risk and enjoy their little quest.

_Children are foolish in that way._

The blades shone in the light of the candle Brienne oftentimes brought along to find her way even in the darkness made the swords and spears seem to move, to dance, soundlessly, to a rhythm, to a melody, that only those could hear who wielded the weapons resting in the armory, put to fast sleep on the wooden shelves.

Brienne can still recall running her fingers over the blades, listening to the song of steel, the soft sigh of the metal and how that had her breath hitch every time, filled her with a kind of awe that she only rediscovered in those past years, if in a different shape.

Standing here in the armory now brings about another memory, however, too, that of her father finding her in the place he wanted to keep her away from for as long as it lasted. Brienne can still recall the rise of his voice, the threatening baritone of when he said her name, to which the young girl spun around with a crooked grin that was never pretty to look at, but nearly always had him smile back at her, her father’s hard features softening almost immediately once he caught sight of her shy, homely grin.

That is what love seems to do: It makes us soft, while at the same time strong, stronger than any blade can ever be forged.

It creates impossible, invisible shapes, all of which, in the end, come from the same metal, the same material, love.

“It seems that my daughter takes after her Lady Mother after all. Stubborn till the bitter end,” her father said some many times, shaking his head as he moved closer when Brienne just could not tear herself from the treasures hidden in the crypts, when she asked him some many times to move them all up to the main hall to put them to display, have them by shined upon by the colored glass from the windows.

Brienne can also remember running towards him, how his arms opened for her, the smallest if warmest welcome she has ever known. Just like she can call to mind the many times her father put his big palm in her back and led her forward, no matter his insistence on how that was not her place to be, seemingly already having reconciled with the fact that his daughter was one born from and for steel. Brienne can also remember how the two of them proceeded down the rows of lined up weapons, some coated in dust, some that shone brighter than any gemstone ever could.

And when she lets her feet carry her down those paths these days, Brienne finds herself in the same place back in time every now and then, finds herself going through the motions of those secret walks along the lines of weaponry where her father would have her recount each type, every kind of blade, and thereby gave her a first taste of something he likely always knew he could not keep her away from, the appetite in her already far too strong to tame.

“There you are,” she can hear a voice call out. Brienne turns to the entrance, for a moment or two seeing her father’s blue, velvety cloak that flowed around him to make him look like a monument, tall and strong. However, the image flits away, and curiously so, Brienne no longer dreads its loss as it scatters over to the torches flickering without relent, hides in the crevices in the walls and the shadows dancing across the dark stone. Instead, she looks on with a smile tugging at her lips as the memories of her father dance away like the blades do once the candles are out, so she sees not her father, but the father of her child.

So that she sees present and future rather than lingering in a past hidden away in motions and faint candle light.

“I was already looking for you,” Jaime says as he comes inside. “As was likely half of the servants of Evenfall Hall… and your maid.”

Brienne frowns at him. “I thought there were no urgent businesses to attend.”

Because Brienne is well past the age of slipping away into the armory to escape her royal duties or the cruel japes made at her expenses when she did not yet know the merit of wielding a blade to defend herself with. These days, Brienne will always make sure that all is well before she makes a travel back in time, however small, however short.

After all, it is duty that binds her, to their people and the rest still out here wrestling against the odds of nature and the ongoing struggle against the aftermaths of war and winter.

“And there were not, but you know how they lose their minds when their Lady of Tarth is somewhere where they do not know her to be. Like little chicks rushing after the hen,” Jaime laughs. “It’s quite a sight, actually.”

“Well, but the Lord of Tarth was there to aid the chicks find their way, no?” Brienne argues, because she can be certain of that one thing – her husband knows very well how to handle Tarth’s affairs. For a man who never saw himself as a lord, was indeed anxious for a time of taking up on the duty at her home isle after he made his feelings and future plans known to her after what seems like an eternity ago now, he handles himself very well.

“Of course,” Jaime chuckles softly, allowing the fingers of his left hand to brush over the lined-up blades, one by one. “So? Is there any certain reason why my Lady Wife hides away in the armory?”

“I am _not_ hiding away,” Brienne insists.

“Well, you told no one, myself included, I may add, where you went, and chose a crypt beneath the earth to spend quite a few hours of the day. It’d tend to think of that as hiding away indeed,” Jaime replies, cocking an eyebrow at her, though a smirk tugs at his lips.

“Then you tend to think wrong,” Brienne huffs. “I just took some time for myself. That is quite another matter.”

“And as we both know… we don’t take time for ourselves most of our days because there is _always_ something that needs to be done, requires our supervision, or our undivided attention,” he scoffs.

“Oh, are you back to lamenting about the duties as a warden?” Brienne snorts.

That seems to be a topic of ongoing debate no matter how much time has passed between them.

“Wench, you should know me better than that – there won’t pass a day where I will not lament about those duties I have to fulfill, no matter how tedious or boring they apparently are,” he snorts, if amused.

“For that you love to complain with such vigor, it appears to me that you enjoy it by far too much to fulfill those oh so tedious duties anyway,” Brienne argues with a grin. “Be true to yourself, Jaime, you quite fancy the life as a lord, whether you like it or not.”

Jaime snorts at that. “Now you are insulting me.”

“I just know you like no one else,” Brienne points out to him.

“Now, _that_ I can readily agree to,” he answers with a smile on his lips.

“So, you tell me, do I have to resurface already?” Brienne asks, letting her gaze wander about the armory once more, looking for some memories that may still be hiding in the crevices, ready to jump out, tumble over the ground and take her away for a moment here, a moment there.

Because Brienne learned by now that there is merit in stealing moments. Like the stolen kiss back at Winterfell that set into motion what is now her life with Jaime by her side. Like stealing into the hallways for a brush of the lips before carrying on with their oh so tedious tasks as wardens, as Lord and Lady. Like staying in bed some moments longer, lingering in the moment of a loose embrace and the sun dancing on both their heads. Like sneaking into Hope’s chamber just to see her breaths evening out as she lays fast asleep in her crib.

In fact, stealing moments, stealing time, stealing memories, Brienne learned that this is the one thievery that is well worth taking the risk, because it is during those moments that she feels life slip between her fingers and shine in even brighter colors than the windows of the main hall.

“You can stay hidden for a while longer under all but one condition,” Jaime announces, pointing his index finger at her with his typical teasing kind of smile.

Brienne tilts her head to the side. “Which would be?”

“You let me share in your hideout. Garth has been driving me _insane_ as of late with his plans. I told him time and time again that he can plant whatever, whenever, with whoever, so long he does not toss the seedlings around the great hall, but the man is way too enthusiastic about the new plants that came from Dorne,” Jaime exhales wearily. “He makes it sound like they are made of solid gold.”

“Well, it is quite an experiment, to see if those plants can be cultivated here due to the change in climate,” Brienne argues. “I found it quite an interesting idea of his, to see if the plants growing on rather sandy ground in Dorne may withstand the weather here because of the ground still not being as moist as it should be.”

Jaime groans, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Now don’t you take his side on this, wife.”

“I am not taking sides in your foolish arguments that you have with your friend,” Brienne retorts, though she is always happy to see that Jaime made friends around the isle. While he wouldn’t admit it to it straight away, Bronn of the Blackwater was one of the few true friends he has had, against the odds of the man being a “self-centered bastard who said he’d only ever keep my company because I paid him well enough,” as Jaime always says on the occasion. And his loss hit Jaime harder than likely he himself imagined. However, now he will spend a good amount of time with Garth, discussing the plantations over mead or some many cups of red arbor, all the while lamenting about their missing limbs and comparing the scars. And Jaime also sees about it to stay in touch with the commonfolk, showing up at the inns every now and then with his wife to let them know that they are not just there, but there for them, too, because Jaime understood very early on that for Brienne it is more than assuming leadership over what is her birthright to rule over, it’s about protecting those people she only came to after the war was over and had cost the lives of many of those people.

They are both their duty and privilege to protect, and Brienne and Jaime want it to stay that way.

“But you are supposed to do _just_ that. You are my wedded wife. You are meant to be on my side, always,” Jaime argues.

“I can’t seem to recall that this was part of the vows we took,” Brienne huffs. “In fact, I am quite sure I did not utter those words when we took our vows.”

“After all this time, I thought that this would be something you would change your stubborn mind about, but I am apparently mistaken,” he sighs.

“You took quite long for that realization, dear husband.”

Jaime smirks at her. “Don’t I always?”

“Hm, you turned out to be a fast learner on _most_ of the things that matter,” Brienne tells him.

And on the one thing that came to matter most between them – love.

“So, you tell me, have you ever given me a tour around the armory?” Jaime asks, glancing about once more, stepping closer, his playful bounce in his step the way Brienne has known it for a long time already, and to this day, it manages to shift something within her, to bring about a lighter mood even when she is lost in thought, in memory, or worry.

“You have been in the armory numerous times, you do recall?” she huffs, joining the beat, the playful bounce. “Or is your memory fading as does the color of your hair?”

“Are you sincerely insulting me for more and more gray hairs of mine?” he laughs, playfully flipping back some strands of his graying hair. “I thought it gave me an air of dignity, actually.”

“Oh, you look like a true lord now,” Brienne assures him mockingly, though truth be told, it gives him an air of dignity, and to this day Brienne can’t quite believe that the man she grew to love and who loves her back in turn is of such beauty. For a woman who was called “Brienne the Beauty” in mockery, it seems almost ironic that she was granted the love of someone of beauty, and at the same time someone who sees beauty in her ungainly looks.

“Well, I still tend to blame everyone giving us so much trouble that I get my gray hairs that early,” Jaime chuckles softly.

“They suit you well enough. Perhaps no air of dignity, but… oh well, as you yourself keep asserting, what could harm your looks that the lack of a hand did not already achieve?” Brienne argues.

Jaime steps closer, then, pressing a kiss to the right side of her temple. “It’s always good to know that my lady wife appreciates that about me. Well, that and my performance in our bed chamber late at night of course. How does Tyrion say? Women profit most from men with experience, for which my gray hairs bring well proof of.”

“I am _so_ blessed,” she laughs, shaking her head.

Though truly, she is. At least Brienne feels very much blessed with the life she calls hers now, the life she didn’t dare to claim for quite some time, too afraid that it would shatter in her strong grip if she dared to hold on too tightly. But it did not shatter, it grew stronger, it grew higher, until a tender bud turned into a small tree, and is now reaching into the sky, above the clouds, where the sun is still hiding away from the Winter’s cold most of these days.

“At last you see that, my lady,” Jaime chuckles, bringing his lips on hers once, the sensation, the ease of it, long since familiar to both, having practiced it for years now, but to this day, Brienne finds her heart fluttering each time, finds it beating one beat stronger, one beat faster, rushing ahead, coaxing her one step further to a future now hers and no one else’s, a future that is hers to live and love.

Because it is the very ease with which Brienne gets the affection from the man she grew to love more than she ever dared believe possible that reminds her that just how much she has been craving not just to love but to be loved.

That was one of those things she never had with Renly, and in truth, that she knew, never would have had. He had respect for her, _in his own way_ , he was good to her in the sense that he did not deny her her wishes, showed the courtesies, accepted her fancy for him, let her serve him because that is what she wanted. But he didn’t love her. He loved Loras, for as long as it lasted. And back then, Brienne was fine with that. She thought that was enough, in fact, the best she could get. To her, it was alright not to be loved back in turn. Brienne thought that an ugly woman the likes of her would not get any better, that she was only free to love, but confined to not being loved back in equal measure.

Brienne thought that loving was something that she could do, that this was something that she could achieve, if only through her service to the people she loved, trying to protect them from harm, but to be loved, to be desired, to be wanted, touched, those were the things that Brienne thought she would never have. She let that hope fly out the window of her chamber from childhood after her last broken betrothal, and she didn’t allow for grief to fill her heart. Brienne made herself believe that it was for good, for her best. That she should rather pursue the life of a knight, to hand out love like the heroes from her children’s books grasped the fair maiden’s lost glove as a token of affection to fetch from, even if finding her and marrying her may never have happened.

However, once she met Jaime, all those things shifted, the things that she thought static, fixed, were suddenly bended out of shape, like steel will budge to the hammer and the anvil, her life was forged, slowly but surely. Familiar cravings, familiar appetites came back to the front that she tried to swallow down. Because Renly was dead. Because Jaime was alive and good to her. Because he appreciated her nature, her character, her stubborn sense of honor that surely annoyed him all the same. Brienne found in the man without honor a man of true honor, of true valor. She saw the traces of it even when he was covered in mud and grime, his hand dangling from a leather cord, she found it in his shouting out to prevent her being raped, or when he leapt into a bear pit to save her from the beast ready to tear her to pieces.

Yet, back then, Brienne thought she was caught in the same music, the same song, of a man she could not have, because he loved another, because he was bound by his oaths, which kept him by the palace and not by her side on the battlefield.

And then… hidden away in the darkness, she found the hope that had flitted out her window when still a young girl pressed against her lips, warm, desperate for the contact, desperate for her, a mirror for her own need, her own desire for that man’s lips, that man’s touch and no one else’s.

Suddenly, Brienne had within her grasp what she thought she would never have. And from that day forth… it just went on, it didn’t end. The miracle happened, and it kept on happening.

Every time they kiss, every time Jaime holds her close, every time they become one, disappear into each other’s bodies as they give way to passions they held reserved for what seems like a small eternity these days, Brienne finds her heart beating as fast as it did when all of that happened for the first time. It is then that she finds herself forged into the right shape, an imperfectly perfect blade of Valyrian steel. 

Every kiss, even those that are lazy morning kisses that hardly find the target of the mouth, but end up on the temple, the cheek, or the neck as both are still heavy with sleep, has her heart flutter for a single beat of a heart as though it was the first.

Every touch, every embrace, it emits the same warmth Brienne felt when they sat on silvery snow and gave in to the pull that drew them to each other no matter their defiance.

Every time they lie in bed, give in to their desires, become one, chase one another while joined, find one another again only once they cry out each other’s names, Brienne has that one moment before they fully succumb to their bodies where her heart is weightless, restless, and wipes out any thought of a past where she thought she would not have and should not have those desires, those wants and needs of being touched, of being loved.

Jaime’s love, his affection, the ease with which he kisses, touches, loves her, makes Brienne realize every day anew that she now lives the life that she thought she was not granted, a full life, not just the half of it, but all of it.

She doesn’t just love, but she is loved.

And that is an answer that her heart held long before she even knew, because her heart kept fluttering long before they kissed the first time.

The human heart, for all the times it can be wrong, can be fooled, seems to hold some of the greatest truths the world will ever know, and the red pound of flesh that stands for life itself holds it in a single heartbeat at times.

“Well, as blessed as I am, I have to wonder if my dear Lord Husband has not forgotten that he was shown around the armory quite a few times already. And if I remember correctly, was here himself not too long ago,” Brienne goes on, brushing her index finger over the ridges of the scars on his stump, a pattern long since as familiar to her as her own body, having mapped those scars, crevices, valleys and hills with her fingertips, all of her, what feels like a thousand times already to the point that it feels as though they are a part of her, too.

“Yes, but I never had you show me around _privately_ , did I?” Jaime laughs, letting out a small sigh as he feels Brienne’s hand brush against the hand no longer there. It is one of those gestures that many will not catch or even begin to fathom what it means to him to have her touch it with this naturalness, as though he only ever had one hand from the very beginning.

Jaime lost that hand defending her, and he realized over the years that it was this act that actually made him whole again. He was fragmented before, he was fragmented when he believed himself whole and golden, but Brienne, over time, put him back together, helped him put himself back together, mended the fissures with steel.

And while he will never again bear the shape once had, Jaime tends to think that this is a better him now, reformed, renewed. While some pieces are missing, others were added, on the inside, and it is that inside that matters, because it contains all of him, all the things that make up who he is and who he may still become.

“There was no sense after you were in here on what was it? The second day of our arrival on the isle?” Brienne argues, shaking her head.

“Well, we might just as well use our private time, hidden away here. I mean, I obviously know what kind of weapons these are, but the story behind them? Their tales? You never told me, and I should know them, as your beloved husband, should I not?” he points out to her.

“Not all swords around here have a story I would know to tell,” Brienne argues.

She didn’t ask for all stories, all tales, hence some were lost alongside her father, never to be recovered again. They, too, are no more than shadows on the walls now, hiding in the crevices, dancing in the flickering lights of the torches, but they won’t ever sing to her.

_Some things may come to you, unexpected, but others, just as suddenly, will be gone forever._

“But _some_ most certainly,” Jaime argues, moving a little closer, as though he sensed that she was letting her mind wander to those dark places that he tries so very much to keep her away from to bathe them in the faint light of the day instead.

Brienne shrugs her broad shoulders. “Maybe.”

“Oh, you can’t keep a secret from me, dearest wife, you should know that by now. Or else I will have to _tease_ the truth out of you,” Jaime argues with his wicked kind of grin on the edge of being ridiculous. “Would you want that?”

“I know _you_ would want that, which is why I suppose I should focus on those stories,” Brienne tells, starting to walk ahead.

“You _love_ my teases, we both know that,” Jaime insists.

“Not in the armory, too many sharp edges,” she points out to him.

“That may add to the thrill, think about it.”

“You asked for a tour and you are about to get it, now don’t be greedy.”

“One does not exclude the other, my dear wife,” Jaime argues, catching up to her, pressing his hand into the hollow of her back. “And you know that there is no purer greed than the one I feel for my wife, because how in the Seven Heavens could I resist the temptations you have to offer, hm?”

Brienne shakes her head, amused, all the while thinking about how they enjoyed that certain battle just this morning, even at the risk of running late for the meeting with the meeting with the guild masters. Because Jaime’s appetite for her did not die down by any means, just like Brienne found that she has not just a hunger for blades and warhammers, but in fact quite more for the man whose kisses can burn like fire and who makes her heart race with something as simple as blowing a hot breath against the nape of her neck, over the scars from where the bear back at Harrenhal rammed its claws into her. And so, Brienne also learned to appreciate the merit of stealing moments of passion for just the two of them, even if that means rushing down the hallways while still fixing her attire to look somewhat presentable for the guild masters, though Jaime tells her time and time again:

“They know in all likability that we are keen on answering our marital duties, as disheveled as you look when we arrive, and truth be told, the blush on your cheeks always gives you away, wife.”

And while the realization and re-realization makes Brienne blush ever the more to the occasion, she can’t help but admit that there is indeed something far too thrilling to the forbidden, perhaps even more so than that sensation she felt when she stole into the armory as a young girl.

“Well, since you won’t give in to temptation just yet, the righteous lady you are, I suppose I will have to make do with the private tour around the armory. So? What about this one?” Jaime asks as they walk down the rows of swords, pointing at the first best that seems to look different than the others. “What story does it tell?”

“I would have no clue,” Brienne admits with a dry laughter.

“Hm, it looks fancy. I thought it may have been one of the royal family,” Jaime says, curling his lips.

“Not that I know. We also keep those of the knights who have served and wanted their weapons stored. So… it might belong to my ancestors… or not,” Brienne explains, before pointing at another. “But _that_ one I know for certain.”

“Whose is that?” Jaime asks, craning his neck.

“It’s Father’s,” Brienne answers, the words coming out with less force than she anticipated. “They found it by his side after the battle was over.”

Jaime frowns, falling silent at her words. While Brienne’s face no longer twists into a painful grimace at the mention of her father, it still turns his stomach around once, then twice, before he can breathe again, knowing that the pain of the grief will never completely fade, will only ever subside, overshadowed by the life now lived.

While his wife keeps reminding him that the time should be over that Jaime feels responsible for his demise, he cannot help himself. Jaime never got to know the man who helped bring into life the woman he loves dearer and fiercer than he ever thought possible. And yet, the presence of Selwyn Tarth seems to flit across Evenfall Hall even now, to the point that even Jaime, a man who hasn’t met him, can sense the man’s aura flickering up every now and then in the candles of Evenfall Hall.

It is not just the stories exchanged during the feasts, the anecdotes of both his bravery and strange seeming antics, the cups lifted to his honor, which hold the Evenstar somehow in this world though he is no longer a part of it, but rather, Lord Selwyn’s legacy seems to ring even louder as time progressed.

Jaime realized that the first time during one of the earliest council meetings of the isle where Brienne spoke up as boldly as she could against some of the guild masters still rather opposed to the ideas they had in mind. As she stood and raised her voice, it wasn’t that the men were afraid or so, but there was a spark in their eyes, something that made them fall silent at once. Back then, Jaime thought it was simply Brienne’s presence that intimidated them, but over time, he had to learn that it was something else, in fact.

Because, some time later, after they had been wed in the eyes of the Seven, the two had to make arrangements for a feast to which they invited most of the lords of the Stormlands along with their entourages, following his brother’s advice to get to know the people whose warden they had become. And during the preparations, Brienne took upon herself most of the organizational issues that needed to be handled. And it was as they set up tables that he heard one of the old maids all of whom have been there for years mutter to another, “She is so much like her Lord Father, isn’t she?”

“Sometimes I think it’s him, actually, when I see her shadow on the wall before the Lady walks down the corridors.”

“Right?”

And when Jaime heard them say those words, he understood that when the people look at his wife these days, they also see her father, they see her walking with his shadow, they see in her what Brienne probably never saw in herself, the possibility of being the ruler of her home isle not just in her father’s name, but also in his spirit.

Brienne, while they were still in the North with death only just a stone’s throw away, once told him huddled over by the fireplace of her chamber that it should have been her older brother Galladon who should have succeeded to their Father’s honor, had he not drowned at a too young age. Brienne also admitted that she never felt like her father’s heir, as though she could not fit into that role because she wasn’t his firstborn son.

However, Brienne was proven wrong as time progressed, moved forward without relent, as fields turned from brown to green, and as winter keeps fading away with every moon passing – because Brienne is now the Lady of Tarth, the Evenstar, the heir she thought she couldn’t ever be. And it is that which the people see in her now that they seemingly didn’t see in Brienne the same way she could not spot it in herself as a young girl or young woman.

_As it appears, there are many slow learners like me._

Jaime steps closer, taking a closer look at the blade’s pommel. “Crescent moons and sunbursts. A true blade of an Evenstar of the isle.”

“A very old blade, I may add. Many Evenstars have wielded it before him,” Brienne replies proudly.

“Did you ever consider taking it up?” he asks, to which Brienne only ever snorts at him. “I have a sword, don’t I?”

“I seem to recall that I had one to spare for you, yes,” Jaime chuckles.

“You could also take it up if you fancied it. By virtue of your title, you are Lord of Tarth as much as I am the Lady of the isle,” Brienne points out to him.

While she didn’t tell her husband about the matter, it wasn’t long time ago that Brienne came into the great hall for a council meeting that was already going on for a while, since she had to tend to Hope.

The girl laid sick in bed with fever. While the healer pointed out to her worried parents that it was nothing much to fret over, Brienne can still recall that they both had some many sleepless nights, far too often slipping into Hope’s chamber only just to watch her chest rise and fall, just to make sure, just to be certain that the night would not dare to take their ray of sunshine breaking through the clouds away from them.

With the weather still rather chilled, or so the healer told them, the children growing sick more often than not is a sadly common these days, for commonfolk and royals alike. However, if anyone had asked Brienne if she were the kind of person to sweat a cold, she would have told them no most definitely, only to point to her scars from sword fights and battling bears.

A lot of things changed now that she is a mother, however. Brienne changed a lot now that she is a mother. And over time, Brienne gained much more understand for Lady Catelyn and her fierce love for her children, the constant worry, that drive to be by their side, the dread when parted from the living being that once was a part of her, parted from the living being that once rested right under her heart, whose first tender footsteps she could feel inside herself.

After Brienne had sung to Hope until the girl had fallen asleep in her bed, she had made for the council meeting at once. And it was the moment she came into the great hall that she spotted Jaime, but Brienne didn’t see him for a moment, then two. She saw her Father, the shadow of him, as Jaime spoke to the guild masters. It was the way he moved, the way he spoke that had her thinking for a moment that, by some wink of fate, something of her father seems to live on inside her husband’s heart.

_Though perhaps, I am just seeing things, how would I tell? Memories are curious things, after all. And sometimes, they play their games with us._

Brienne watches as Jaime walks over to the shields set on a metal rack to the right. He points at one in particular. “Oh, that one looks rather old.”

“It has been in our possession ever since I can recall,” Brienne says. “Though I don’t know for how many generations, actually. Father himself said that even Grandfather could not tell him just when the shield found its way here.”

Jaime runs his fingers over the oaken shield. “A tree under a falling star. Wasn’t that the coat of arms of Ser Duncan the Tall? I seem to recall that from the Book of the Brothers.”

Jaime had told himself that he still had time to fill his own pages, but he never saw the book again to put the ink down on parchment. It was lost in the war, lost in the past, leaving him as one of the last remaining men of the Kingsguard to recall those pages, the deeds written on those pages, attesting to the knights’ excellence.

Though looking back at things now, Jaime reckons that he was right – he filled many pages, but of another book, another kind, the book of life, his life, their life, their love, their family, their future.

He tilts his head to the side as he looks back at his wife, who mirrors his movement.

“I'd think so,” she answers pensively.

“Huh. And how did it end up _here_? If it is Ser Duncan’s…,” Jaime says with a frown, letting his gaze wander back to the dusty shield.  

Brienne shrugs her broad shoulders at him. “I never asked Father about it, I must admit. I just wanted it as a girl, when I picked up the sword, quite desperately, actually. That is all I can tell.”

Jaime taps his fingers on the shield as he turns his gaze back to Brienne once more, craning his neck. “Well, upon reflection, you have something of him, now that I look at you. Who knows, maybe you and Ser Duncan share more than just the height?”

“A Lord Commander of the Kingsguard,” Brienne argues. “I may remind you.”

“I was one, too. And see where I am now,” Jaime snorts, amused.

A husband, a father, all those things Jaime never thought he would have, all the things he thought he had forsaken with the vows he took, with the sins he committed in the name of a love long since faded from his mind, to the point that even the anger he has felt towards Cersei after the ambush on Tarth is all but a faint memory of a throb he once felt beneath his skin.

So, considering where he is now, considering what page of his life he is now writing, against the odds of where he began his journey to the life he now lives, Jaime can't find it unlikely that one of his role models whose name is all but a mystery, a legend now, may have carried on his blood to generations still to come, for no one to know, for no one to see.

Though it doesn’t matter to Jaime much at all. The blood is not nearly as important as people give it credit for. The only thing that matters is the family, the people in it, not the texture of their blood, not the names they carry.

Life is what matters. Life and love.

“So you see, stranger things have happened,” Jaime snickers.

“Hm, maybe you should tell Tyrion about your suspicion. I suppose he would _love_ to trace back that history,” Brienne scoffs, though thinking about it, that may explain why her grandfather always looked at her so oddly when the young girl asked about the origins of the shield. Perchance he knew something that he didn’t share in after all, but who is to say? Those are the kind of memories and stories that will seemingly remain hidden in the crevices.

“Oh, Tyrion welcomes any excuse to take his mind off of the duties as Hand of the Realm. As it appears, my dear brother starts to realize how bothersome and tedious this business can be,” Jaime chimes. “And that despite the fact that he was so very eager for the position.”

As of late, Tyrion’s letters are much more often long lists of laments about this and that, so and such, about how it is too much work, how there is too little time to drink, and how he would fancy some time away on the Sapphire Isle, at any stage claiming that it would only ever benefit Hope’s education if he were around more often instead of “trying to keep the Realm’s peace while we all are more or less like children, still, fighting or whose toys are whose and what we do in case one gets broken.”

Though Jaime already wrote to him that he is expected to be on the isle for Hope’s namesday, a celebration her uncle should not dare to miss, now Hand of the Realm or not.

“Something he shares in with his brother, it seems,” Brienne snorts.

“We are brothers, what do you expect?” Jaime laughs, noting to himself how easy it is these days to call him brother. While that is what Tyrion is and will always be to him, no matter what was between them in the past, there was a time when Jaime had a hard time saying the word without his stomach turning into a tight knot.

However, over time, that knot undid itself, so that, these days, there is far more often a small smile tugging at his lips whenever Jaime affirms one of those truths that are actually as straightforward as his love for Brienne or Hope. 

_It’s the family that matters most, after all._

And that is the one truth that Jaime knows.

“I’d sometimes hope for the both of you to be more reasonable, but I long since gave up on that futile wish of mine,” Brienne scoffs.

“Well, I cannot help it that you have such unreasonable expectations. As you say often enough, you should know better,” Jaime chuckles. “And no matter my lament, you love me regardless. And as to my brother… I suppose you accepted him by now.”

“I did, and truth be told, he has my highest respect for handling the affairs of the realm the way he does it. Not many men would achieve what he does,” Brienne tells him, nodding her head. She didn’t get to know Tyrion personally until they were on the way to Winterfell to fight the living dead. It was between discussing battle tactics, looming over maps, and heavily debating about strategies that she got a first glimpse of the man to whom she was already connected through young Podrick and later on the man she came to love and marry. And over time, respect grew into appreciation and deep-felt care for Hope’s uncle.

And Gods know that Hope loves her uncle fiercely. Whenever Tyrion manages to sail to the isle, she demands of the short-grown man to read her a bedtime story every night, and no matter how tired he may be from the voyage, the Lord Hand cannot resist her, even if that means that Brienne will find the two some many times huddled over on the ground, both fast asleep with a big book on both their laps.

“So, are you telling me that you have more respect for that fool of a brother than for your wedded husband?” Jaime snickers, feigning distress.

“I wouldn't ever dare,” she replies, joining the tune.

And Jaime must say, one of the things he cherishes so very much, if only privately, is how Brienne’s rare smiles grew far more common. She no longer hides away her happiness, seems no longer as afraid as she once was to expose it to the light of the day, out of fear it would be ripped away of her if she dared to love too much, to live too much, to be too happy.

However, a few years have passed now since the day painted silver that brought together what was only once united by the lips in a shadowy corner, and along the way, the fears of being too happy are more or less echoes for the two.

Hardships keep coming their way, as they did ever since they made to the Sapphire Isle. The last harvest was very bad, _to say the least_. Not long ago, there was a quarrel in the Northern regions that resulted from a shortage on food that sadly didn’t make it North as it should have. As Lady Sansa said, it took a lot to calm the storm. In Dorne, there was also a lot of upset as people started the fight once over about who should be on the Great Council that almost resulted in a revolt.

To this day, Jaime has to dodge some many blows coming his way, because the stigma of the Kingslayer did not fade, no matter his efforts. In the Westerlands, there are still voices who demand that the Lannister brothers remove themselves from lordship, and from the Great Council altogether.

And Brienne does not walk unscathed. While many of the people of the Rock grew fond of their Lady by now, there are also those who do not like the thought to have someone as their lady who hasn’t grown up in the West, and didn’t even travel to the Rock until after they were wed, thus making her Lady of the Rock before she ever set foot upon its grounds.

However, Jaime tends to regard those hardships as challenges. And up until now, they overcame each and every one of them. Not always in the most elegant of ways, to be sure, but Jaime knows that there are hardly elegant solutions in the realm of politics, even less so in the realm of a world that needs to be rebuilt, that stands on shaky pillars, is a fragile thing that grows sturdier with each day passing, but nonetheless relies on effort, labor, and a will not to give up.

And at the same time, this world relies on the one simple thing: That they live the lives they have and do not spend them not worrying, but living.

“I am always relieved to hear that you do not think of me that lowly,” he snorts.

Brienne cocks an eyebrow at him in turn. “You’d think I would have married a man I think lowly of?”

“Not really, you are too honorable for that,” Jaime agrees.

“Don’t forget what Brandon Stark told you in private. If _he_ could bring himself to see the greater cause in you, the value outweighing the rest, then it seems to be all but a small jump for me to see in you what most others have not or didn’t yet either,” Brienne argues, bringing Jaime to smile at her once again.

Sometimes, Jaime has his mind go back over when he met Bran for the first time after he pushed him out the window what seems to be an eternity ago now. The lad’s words, mumbled by a fire cracking in the hearth, assuring Jaime that no grudge was held, that a deed needed to be fulfilled and that he did that deed for a greater purpose, that he saw light in his future, a blade cutting through the darkness to bring with it light again, have resonated inside Jaime like an endless echo for many years. They come and go, but they are always somehow there, despite the fact that the boy with raven hair is not around at all.

_At least for anyone to see._

Brandon Stark simply vanished, for all people know. There were no goodbyes to his siblings, no last words spoken, no slip of parchment written, no single word of dried ink to leave testament for his reason to go, no last advice from a boy who saw the world at all times at once, indeed, no single trace.

They found his wheelchair by the heart tree of Winterfell, amidst freshly fallen snow. There were traces of how he had rolled there all by himself, but beyond that, there was no single footprint to be found. As though the boy had just disappeared, vanished from this face of the earth, over to another, far out of anyone’s reach.

They searched for Bran without relent or rest, tried to find the boy, but there was no one there, no one’s footsteps could be found, no one’s traces detected.

He was just gone.

The boy who lost the ability to walk apparently learned to fly.

Jaime pulls himself away from the imagery of the heart tree with the abandoned wheelchair, back to the armory, back to Brienne, simply grabbing her from behind to pull her to him, always feeling that urge so strongly within him when his mind dares to go back to the hearth where Brandon Stark told him about a light within him that Jaime didn’t see by the time.

Brienne tenses for the fraction of a moment, but then eases against his touch, letting out a small sigh.

“Sometimes I wonder what the boy had in mind with us,” Jaime mutters into the nape of her neck.

“We’ll never know. He saw what no one else could see,” Brienne exhales, easing against his touch.

“Which is why I would have liked to ask some questions for just that reason,” Jaime sighs.

“Isn’t it that we are off best not knowing the future?” Brienne argues softly. “Imagine how boring it’d be if we already knew who’d win every sword fight before we even drew our swords. Where would be your oh so precious thrill in that, hm?”

“True again,” Jaime chuckles softly. “And I should consider myself truly fortunate that my dear lady wife is still so fierce with the blade, just as fierce as she was when we first met. She still gives me bruises all the while once in the training yard.”

While her bad leg will never permit her the same kind of grace and swiftness that she once had, Jaime can’t get enough of crossing blades with her to this very day. It has his blood singing every time, because with Brienne, he has the fortune to fight for the joy of it, the thrill of the moment when their blades collide and sing the song of steel without it foreshadowing a great bad coming upon them.

“That is because you get lazy,” Brienne points out to him.

“I fight with my left better than I ever did before,” Jaime insists.

“Which is a miracle, is it not? After you told me that you were that other hand that is no more?” she argues in a gentler voice this time.

“Is that your way of trying to let me tell you that were right about it when you told me how wrong I was in that assessment?” Jaime chuckles softly.

“In a way, I assume,” Brienne tells him with a smirk.

Jaime chuckles softly. Brienne wouldn’t ever know how much that came to mean over time for him, that she held on to his life when he felt like giving up on it. He thought he was that hand, but Brienne proved him wrong, because he is more than that. He grew to be a respected war general. He was granted the fortune of a second chance with the woman he came to love long before he could begin to utter the words. He is now Lord of Tarth. He is now father of a daughter who bears her name in her eyes and thereby is the hope for him the same way, his glimpse at the future.

“You know what Garth just recently said to me?” Jaime asks, to which Brienne only ever rolls her eyes. “I bet you are about to tell me.”

“He joked that his son wants to be a _foolish knight_ and asked me to talk sense into him, having suffered the ‘same bloody destiny.’ I said to him that I would hardly talk a young boy out of the destiny that brought me to where I am now. He smacked me for it and pointed out that I just seem to be one lucky bastard, and that most others don’t get as many second chances as I did… and upon reflection, he had the rights of it, didn’t he?” Jaime tells her.

“Well, you worked hard to get where you are now. You faced those you did harm to and you would have accepted their price to pay for whatever you did. You faced the White Walkers, knowing that it may well mean your demise. You came to the isle knowing that not just love would come your way. You became a lord though you wanted to be a knight. I think to only say that you got second chances handed to you does you disservice, Jaime,” she argues. “For that, you did a lot when no one wanted to grant you such.”

Jaime shakes his head. “It still baffles me at times that you have such faith in me. Even after all those years.”

“It took me long enough to see it anyway.” She shrugs.

“See what?” he asks, frowning.

“That there was good reason to put faith in you. And sadly so, still, and likely for a long time in the future, people will not see the reason why I put faith in you,” Brienne answers.

“Well, gladly, the lion does not concern himself with the opinion of the sheep.”

“Just that you do,” Brienne points out, brushing her index and middle finger along his jawline affectionately.

Jaime flashes a small smirk. “True again. It appears that lions aren’t lone wolves after all. They live in a pride.”

“Which took you long enough to realize,” Brienne replies, offering a smirk.

“Oh, you should not judge me for such a notion that you shared in for a long, long time yourself. You can try to twist it however you please, my dearest wife, but you seemed to believe for an achingly long time that you were the one star shining at the night’s sky that no one’s ever noticed or cared to put down on a map,” Jaime argues, draping one arm around her once again, never tiring of the contact, the simplicity of the motion, the wonder of the warmth that seeps right through him when he holds her close.

“Well, for a time I was the only one of my clan,” Brienne argues.

“But now no more.”

“Now no more indeed,” she sighs.

Her times of loneliness are over indeed.

Jaime takes up one of the rusty blades and playfully twists it in his hand, feeling the strangely familiar blade. While he never wielded the sword, the weight of it, the way it moves with his body, that remains familiar to his flesh even though it is not the blade he has been wielding for years.

“Which is a curious thing in itself, is it not? All this time I thought I would die a heroic death, you see. I always said to myself that dying for a higher cause would be the one service I could do to redeem myself for the wrongs I have done. Just like I believed that it was the only way for me to let echo the good I have done,” Jaime says.

_Like slaying Aerys. Like saving Brienne. Like loving her._

Those were the undeniably good things that Jaime came to regard as such. Even the act of backstabbing, for which he felt guilt for many years, has long since faded. It was Brienne’s faith and some muttered words by a young boy who saw everything at once about how it was not just Jaime’s act of defenestrating him that was necessary to set forth a chain of events to defeat the White Walkers but also to have the King go mad, to have the green fire right in this place. And that it was Jaime’s act of treason to the crown that left dormant the wildfire years later needed to destroy a huge part of the army of the dead as it crept across the Wall to consume the living. 

“You did what was necessary to protect the people. However, you did not know that you were actually serving the people of the future far more than those that were of your immediate responsibility, those still to come, those yet to grow and forget of that first heroic act. No hero’s tales will be sung about that act of yours, Ser Jaime, but what brought you the name you will carry… for many years to come… it was all but one step towards this moment, to ensure that we can talk just now, that there is a world in which we can speak, in which people can live and thrive. Destiny… it is chaotic and seems oftentimes without much sense, but sometimes… one stone tossed down a mountain can bring forth an avalanche years later that can shake the entire earth to make mountain chains break like glass.”

Those words uttered by a young boy by the hearth didn’t leave Jaime, no matter how many years have passed since, though he still has not quite figured out the reasons why and the implications that came from a speech given by someone who had the body of a young boy but the mind of a wise man.

“And yet, here you are amongst the living,” Brienne says, brushing her fingertips across the oak shield with the tree and the falling star painted on it.

“And yet, here I am indeed. The wonder of that didn’t die down in me, no matter how much time has passed since,” Jaime agrees.

“I am the same,” Brienne admits, chewing on her lower lip. “There are still times when I wake up and believe to hear the howl of the dragons as they announced the battle’s beginning. I still hear the metal singing as blades collided… and I think that the time has come that all good ends… but then it doesn’t. It simply doesn’t.”

Because then she turns her face away from the window, and sees her husband lying next to her, either still fast asleep or granting her a lazy smile as sleep falls out of his eyes, and that is when Brienne remembers that the times, no matter how strenuous, no matter how demanding, are still good times, times of life.

“No hero’s deaths for the likes of us, it seems,” Jaime chuckles.

“Well, perhaps a hero’s death can take on different shapes,” Brienne points out thoughtfully. “Not all find their deaths on the battlefield. You see, back in the day… I thought that only dying with sword in hand had somehow purpose. My Lady Mother died in childbed, and I always found that… _unworthy_ , for her sake. It was a battle that no great song would ever be sung about, and that filled my heart with grief. I didn’t know her well, but I know that my father loved her fiercely. And so… back in time, I thought it was unfair that she did not get a death that would have her be remembered as the fighting woman Father said she was.”

“You had to get that spirit from somewhere, as intensely as you have it, it’s small wonder that both your Lord Father and Lady Mother were quite the… fighting type,” Jaime chuckles softly.

“I didn’t understand it until Hope was born. Had I died giving birth to her… that wouldn’t have been a disgrace, just like my mother’s demise was not,” Brienne tells him faintly, looking over the blades and shields, a place she never found traces of her mother in, but now that she looks upon the blade her father wielded, Brienne dares to think she can see it, right in its reflection – the love he felt for her, the wish to protect those her father loved most, and the anguish he must have felt when even this formidable blade could not protect her from demise.

_Because there is nothing more hateful than failing to protect the ones you love._

“I would have cursed you forever for daring to leave me,” Jaime tells her with a grin, though the mere thought makes his missing hand clench and unclench.

It would have been like losing himself, because she is a part of him, she is the matter that made him whole, and without her, Jaime does not even want to image what would have become of him, what shape he would have come to bear without her forging.

“Oh, that’s not what I was trying to get at, fret not,” she assures him quickly, noting the underlying distress in his voice. “What I was trying to say is… I suppose I had to become a mother to understand both my own Lady Mother and Lady Catelyn a bit better. Dying to give life… no matter with sword in hand or as you try to bring to the light the life that grew inside of you for many moons… that is a hero’s death. There is no higher purpose to me but to… devote your life to the people you love.”

Jaime says nothing at that, just smiles as he nods his head slowly.

_The things you do for love._

“And that is why I tend to think now that even if we do not go down fighting with sword and shield in hand, we may still get our hero’s deaths once our time has come,” Brienne goes on to say. “Because if we are to die of old age, following years of fighting for our people, for our family… then we lived devoted to the lives of the people we love, devoted to life, to love. And that, I think, will be a worthy death.”

“One that may be even sung about,” Jaime agrees.

“Perhaps. Who knows. Though I do hope that they will not have us be remembered as the _Bear and the Maiden Fair_ ,” Brienne suggests.

“If they play that song during the next feast again, I will sign a decree to have it banned from the isle. I would not want to see my Lady Wife in grief for those matters,” Jaime chuckles. It was quite a shock when they started playing that tune during one of the first feasts they hosted, when the bonds between their people and themselves were as fragile as threads of glass.

“Most kind of you,” she snorts.

“It’s frightening, is it not? To think that us two will somehow go down in history?” Jaime asks, his voice trailing off.

“What? You already saved your spot in the history books yet to be written after you slew Aerys. You should be somewhat used to the idea by now. For me, it is quite another matter,” Brienne scoffs.

“Oh yes, because you thought you could just fade into the background so that no one would find you,” Jaime laughs.

Though there is no hiding anymore, not from him, of that Jaime will make sure. Brienne doesn’t get to hide away from him, not for long. She may slip away on the occasion, but she is not supposed to hide away her smiles, hide away her grief. If she has trouble, Jaime wants her to come to him and speak it out loud, so he can hold her close or offer words of reassurance. He wants her to leave the candles on when they give in to their passion and appetite for one another so he can look upon his wife, with all of her scars and ungainly features and all those details that he learned to love and want to press his lips to in order to cherish them, the nape of her neck, her endless legs, great back that Jaime just loves to trace his stump and fingers over as they unite, chasing each other and finding one another in the depths of each other’s bodies. He wants to see all of Brienne as she gives herself over to him completely, shouts his name, even if she may have shied away from just that in the early beginnings, because he doesn’t want her to hide, doesn’t want her to get lost in the dark. And if she feels like laughing, he wants her to flash her teeth, not hide it away behind her big palms.

Because Brienne is his love, his life, and Jaime doesn’t want to hide either one of those things ever again, because those are the things he can proudly present in the eyes of the Seven, in the eyes of their people. He can take her hand into his, can press a kiss to her mouth and the people will likely cheer them on if it is done during a feast.

Jaime no longer has to hide, and so, he won’t allow for it that Brienne hides away from him either. He wants all of her every other day and he wants the world to know that she is his, just like he is hers.

“It was my hope that I could stay in the background somewhat,” Brienne chuckles softly.

“My apologies, my lady, but you will join the Kingslayer in the realm of history, whatever shape it is going to take,” Jaime tells her with a smile.

Whatever the future may hold, it is theirs to carry out into the light of day.

“Well, if Brandon Stark were still here, we may have asked him how we are going to be remembered,” Brienne points out.

Jaime shakes his head. “I don’t think he would have told us even if we had asked.”

“Likely so. And perhaps it’s for the better. Who’d want to know his or her future that far ahead? I imagine it must have been a curse for him all the same, to know all those things,” Brienne says.

“Quite a burden to carry for a boy who claims that he learned how to fly,” Jaime agrees solemnly.

Because in the end it meant that the world seemed far too limiting for him. The price he paid was likely higher than any of them could even begin to fathom, thus, Jaime tends to think like his wife regarding the matter: They are off best not knowing what their future holds beside each other and their friends and family.

Even if that means Jaime will likely never quite decipher the words spoken to him by the hearth by a boy he hardly knew:

_“You have already had light brought into your own darkness. And so will you bring light to other peoples’ darkness, in a future not far away. There are many who bring light and who will bring light, to the Long Night yet to come, but also beyond that. And it is that time that will let you ignite another kind of flame, so that something can rise into the sky that shines like an evenstar. But that is something you will only see once you have laid your eyes upon it, which I already did.”_

“Have you ever thought about it that we may have to put our swords here as well one of these days? To preserve them for all time?” Jaime asks with a smirk. “I seem to be able to spot a part of the wall that would very well fit both our Valyrian blades.”

“Are you sincerely suggesting that I put down my sword? It will only ever stay in this armory once I am passed, be certain of that,” Brienne scoffs, crossing her arms over her flat chest. “Until that day arrives, it will remain in my chamber or in the scabbard wrapped around my waist.”

“And that is where I like it best,” Jaime laughs, giving her hip a teasing pinch.

“What did I say?” she warns him, though Brienne can’t help but smile anyway.

“The tour is drawing to a close, so we might just as well let the Lord of Tarth give in to his greed for his ravishing lady wife,” Jaime snickers. “You know that you are the only one who can satisfy that appetite.”

“And just because I can that means I have to?” Brienne questions, raising an eyebrow at him.

“You are my wedded wife, so of course you have to answer your marital duties,” Jaime laughs.

She rolls her eyes. “But _not_ in the armory.”

“We may just as well sneak up to the chamber if that fits my lady wife better. I was in fact not quite done with you yet this morning. I didn’t even get to properly feast on you,” Jaime hums, flashing a dirty kind of grin that has Brienne’s skin crawl each time, because no matter her insistence, she wouldn’t want to miss just those occasions.

“We were already late for the council meeting,” she points out to him anyway.

“And as they are all chicks, too, they will readily wait for the hen and the cock to finish business involving a body part bearing the same name,” Jaime tells her with a wicked sort of grin. “As I said, they all know what we two are up to, so why shouldn’t we take our time all the while?”

“Because of duty.”

Jaime shakes his head. “That sounds rather unconvincing, for me at least.”

“Because of the thrill?” she suggests instead, which has Jaime frowning at her.

“ _Thrill_? As far as it concerns me, the greatest thrill is what I get to do with you once the doors are locked… or when we find some private spot down one of the many hallways, which have such a wonderful echo so that I can hear you over and over again,” Jaime teases. Because the Gods know how much he loves to get Brienne to the point that even she, the honorable, dutiful Lady of Tarth cannot resist her husband, but let him have his way with her down a hallway, or in the groves when they ride out into the woods when time permits it.

“The thrill of having to wait for it, of having to steal away, doing something we are not supposed to do? Think about it. I tend to believe that there is something to be gained from having to take those moments rather than just having them,” Brienne suggests to him.

“As always, my dear lady wife has to make everything a challenge, a fight.”

“As always.”

“And as always, do I love you for it ever the more. Because men like me love those challenges,” Jaime chimes, pulling her a little closer to himself, letting his stump brush down her side, relishing the way Brienne shudders at the contact, no matter how often he does it. “But what speaks against declaring this a challenge now? Sneaking away here and…”

“It’s not happening,” she argues in a flat voice.

“Do I have to kiss you until you submit to me?” he laughs.

“You can very well try, but I daresay that your attempts will remain futile, my dear husband,” Brienne answers. Jaime pulls her in for a passionate kiss this time, which as Brienne blinking as he spins her around halfway in an almost dramatic fashion.

“You dared me, wench, what were you expecting?” Jaime laughs as he straightens her back up again, whereas Brienne is busy patting her hands down herself to straighten out her tunic and breeches.

“That my husband would act more like a grown man,” she mutters, feeling heat rise to her cheeks.

“ _Please_ , you _want_ me to catch you off-guard like that, you just don’t want to admit it. Isn’t it part of the thrill my dear wife is secretly craving, as I just learned?” he teases, to which Brienne only ever rolls her eyes at him. “I never should have said it.”

“But now you did, and that means I will keep giving you that thrill, even when you try to resist. After all, it is my duty and privilege to see to it that my wife is satisfied at all times,” Jaime hums.

“Even if that means to shatter my nerve?” he sighs.

“Even more so,” he agrees. “I love it when you lose all of your control and go unhinged in my arms.”

Because that woman is a weapon, a woman made of steel, forged to have a secret kind of elegance that she only ever reveals to Jaime and Jaime alone in the privacy of their chamber. When they move as one, Jaime realizes time and time again that he is bound to yield at her about as often as she yields to her own passion she feels for him. And the woman wouldn’t even know what she does to him at times, exposing her elegance to him with something as simple as the way she cranes her neck or brushes her fingers over his stump with feathery touches.

“Your game is not working, husband,” she warns him.

“It will in due time. I love to win this game, because I always do.”

“You go on believing that.”

“I can prove it to you.”

“No.”

“Yes.”

Brienne opens her mouth to retort something, but that is when she hears footsteps approaching, or rather, skipping down the hallways leading up to the armory. A few moments later, Brienne sees nothing but the future come through the door as Hope rushes inside, a blonde-haired girl who inherited her mother’s freckles and blue eyes, while keeping her father’s hair and undying energy – and a good portion of his undying appetite for life and laughter.

Jaime presses a quick kiss to the side of her cheek before walking up to their daughter, bends down and opens his arms for Hope to jump right to as though it was her one place to be, allowing Brienne for the briefest of moments to see another glimpse of the past hiding in the crevices as she sees herself running towards her father in the same fashion, but now granted the view from behind, to see the joy on Hope’s face as she wraps her small arms around Jaime’s neck.

“Father!” the girl shouts happily, constantly erasing any lingering doubt either one of her parents may have had about whether they could raise a child. Against the odds of the times Hope was born into, with so much trouble still just out the door as snowflakes fall far too often even these days, her days are filled with laughter and giving her parents chase as she discovers the world, but always with the certainty that she can return into the arms of both her mother and father to find comfort within that embrace.

“Seems like we were found already,” Jaime laughs, looking over his shoulder over to Brienne briefly before focusing his attention back on Hope as he balances her small body on his right arm, having practices long enough how to hold her as she grew. He was anxious about dropping her some many times, but Brienne reminded him that he learned to fight with his left, so he would simply have to repeat the task by training with his daughter.

And that is what Jaime has done ever since. He picked her up and put her back down, told her over and over to let him know whether he was doing it right. And it was during one of those trainings that Jaime almost had tears spring to his eyes when his daughter said that she was never scared of falling because:

“You always catch me!”

“Now, what brings you down here, Hope, hm?” Jaime asks, adjust his position to keep true to his promise to catch his daughter, even though she falls down a good number of times, but like her mother, gets up every time, wipes the small tears away, and carries on.

“You were. And Mother was gone, too. And I wanted to play, so… I came looking,” Hope answers, briefly waving at Brienne before holding on to her father again, having long since understood that when she is in his arms, she is supposed to hold on even tighter. “And now I found you.”

“And what would you want to play? Hide and seek? Skimming stones by the sea?” Jaime suggests.

“Swooooords!” the girl calls out gleefully.

_Her favorite answer._

“If you carry on with your fancy for swords at this rate, it is only a matter of time until you will knock our good master-at-arms Podrick into the dust just like your Lady Mother did it when he squired for her,” Jaime chuckles, bouncing back and forth on his heels as he turns around with the girl to face towards Brienne.

“Oh, I played with him yesterday!” Hope tells him with a broad smirk, which has her freckles dance over her pale face.

“Did you?” Jaime laughs, well aware that Podrick rolled with her in the grass just the other day, having grown more than fond of the young girl right from the beginning.

Though Jaime reckons it to be good training for the master-at-arms. After all, he wed a fisher girl named Leah not long ago, and if Jaime is not mistaken, it won’t be long until Podrick Payne is to sire his own first child. Thus, Jaime sees the merit in it that he gets to practice with Hope already. The lad seems to be a slow learner like him, for all that Brienne told him about their journeys by now.

“Yes. And I won…,” Hope says, only look at her fingers in an attempt to count the times she bested Pod in fight, “… very many times.”

“So many?” Jaime asks, laughing. “Oh, maybe we have to make you master-at-arms, then.”

While the girl learned to talk very early on, having found her voice already as a baby, calling out to the world, ready to tackle it as her lungs starting filling with air, Hope has not yet mastered the numbers her dear uncle is so fond of.

 _Though it’s only a matter of time until she will tackle those as well_ , Jaime is quite sure.

“Can I?” their daughter asks, bouncing up and down on his arm in sheer excitement.

“You have to ask Ser Podrick first, though.”

“Oh, alright, I will ask him next time,” Hope agrees, nodding her blonde, curled head thoughtfully. “Maybe we can share.”

“But that means you have to take your training very seriously,” Jaime reminds her. “Podrick had to do the same.”

“I always do!” the girl insists.

“I have no doubt, my dear daughter,” Jaime chuckles. “You see, she makes me worry little about the future. The girl seems to have it all figured out already, don’t you?”

“I always do!” Hope laughs, holding her chin a little higher.

“That’s what I thought,” Jaime snickers.

Hope was indeed their hope, and she continues to be such with every day passing, with every dark thought flitting away as fields turn green and stay that way, regardless of the unrelenting cold coming from the North. When Jaime looks into those brilliant blue eyes, he sees her mother in her so much that he can’t help but think that future is no longer such a faraway concept that it seemed to be during the war times, when Jaime believed that a stolen kiss was as far as future thinking went for him.

Neither one of them knows what the future holds, but of that the two of them are certain, their legacy will live on in the love for their child, will live on in Hope’s life, in every of her smiles and quests around Tarth as she explores her home now that she is steady on her feet and heard Jaime recount her mother’s adventures, thereby starting a small avalanche of its own. Because Hope now wants to take just after her mother and father and undertake “all adventures at once.”

In those blue eyes, in that small smile, lies their future, ready to tackle the world.

“Mother, can Father play with me in the gardens, please?” she asks.

“Why do you ask _her_ for permission?” Jaime laughs.

“Because Mother has to agree first. She makes the rules,” Hope answers simply.

“See? She is brighter than her old man already,” he exhales with a grin.

“But you are still supposed to ask your father whether he has the time to play, Hope,” Brienne points out, stepping closer to press a kiss to the child’s brow.

“Do you?” Hope questions, looking at her father pleadingly.

“I will always find the time to spar with my daughter, of course,” Jaime chuckles.

And even if he doesn’t have the time, Jaime swore to himself that he would make it. He didn’t dare to take the time for the children he had and who were taken before they could grow to adulthood, but with Hope, he wants to take the time and make it count. He doesn’t want to stand by in her life, he wants to be right at the center, so that she will grow up knowing that she doesn’t have to hide from her father just like her mother is not supposed to.

“Then let’s go!” the small girl demands, moving her legs for emphasis.

“And what of Mother? Don’t you want to spar with her, too?” Jaime teases.

“Oh yes, please!” Hope chimes. “Oh, or we could go out for a ride! Or a swim! Or an adventure! Or very many!”

“Now, that’s some many things for a single day to fulfill, Hope,” Brienne argues with a soft smile. “I am afraid we can’t do them all in a single day.”

“But tomorrow and the day after that and the day after that?” the girl asks, looking at her mother with pleading eyes neither parent will ever be able to resist, it seems.

“Certainly,” Brienne assures her.

Because they have the freedom to take those moments for themselves, for their lives, so that they are lives that are being lived and loved.

And that is the greatest thrill.

The greatest privilege.

“Father?”

“Yes, Hope?” Jaime turns to look at her.

“When is Uncle Tyrion coming? I need new stories and he has so many!” the girl asks, chewing on her thick lower lip. Hope is about as besotted with her uncle as Tyrion is with his niece. While their daughter cannot yet count properly, she will count the days until the Lord Hand makes back to the Sapphires Isle to tell her stories and fool around with her and the hobbyhorse he gave to her. Back when he brought it with him to give to her, Tyrion pointed out to young Hope that his older brother gave him a similar gift, which he came to cherish very much, all the while rewarding Jaime with a grin attesting to the renewed bond between the brothers.

“That’s… not so very, very many days,” Jaime chuckles. “He wrote to me not long ago that he is looking forward to seeing you for your namesday.”

The future is incredibly close while seemingly stretching incredibly far ahead, it seems.

“Then we have to get out and train and have adventures, or else I have no stories to tell to him,” Hope urges them.

Because this young girl seems to have grasped very early on that writing one’s personal history, is a thing of true importance. That it matters to fill one’s story with memories to pass on is something of value, thereby displaying a kind of wisdom in her childish mind that she will only come to understand once she is much later, it seems. However, for Jaime and Brienne, it is those moments that remind them that it is this life that is their legacy to give to Hope to pass on, so she will tell their stories, her stories with them, which will hopefully contain more good than bad, holding fondly the memories of rolling over the high grass or sparring with wooden swords in the training yard.

“And we could not chance that, could we?” Jaime agrees, nodding his head. “Because I have to make sure that I have something to tell to your Uncle Tyrion as well. Imagine what a shame it would be if I could not tell him a single story!”

Though they always find something boring to talk about, like trade unions, some matter of the Great Council, or wheat and corn and grain, because outside the bliss of the adventurous private life, their duty still lies with seeing people fed and keeping the realm’s peace.

 _Not that this means we don’t have our fun while drinking more wine than we should as we craft that peace_ , Jaime thinks to himself, called back to the many evenings he was granted to spend with his brother where the past between them was no longer heavy on either man’s heart, where they could drink to the future.

“Oh, there are always some news to share with Tyrion,” Brienne points out, gesturing at her husband to walk ahead, which he does.

“As of late not much was going on, I may remind you,” Jaime argues. “Hope has likely more to tell than I do.”

“Yes!” Hope chimes, gesturing at Jaime to let her down, which he does so that the girl can already rush ahead, which is seemingly the one direction that the girl knows.

“I wouldn’t be too sure about that,” Brienne sighs, letting her gaze fall back on the armory, the oaken shield and her father’s sword gleaming in the candlelight, which casts shadows of the past to be taken away by the crevices, to keep them for the next time she may have to escape for a while, to find reassurance and guidance in that which she holds close to her heart, the memories, the past.

Because one of the great reassurances for Brienne is that her sword will come to stand next to her father’s and Jaime’s, but that their legacy, that of both her father and themselves will reach beyond, will shine beyond the armory, will not have to stay hidden away in the crevices, but will light the way for the future yet to happen, the future yet to be born.

“Are you hiding something from me, dear wife?” Jaime asks, cocking an eyebrow at her.

“I wouldn’t ever,” Brienne argues.

Because she is truly done hiding from a life filled with love and laughter, a life that is apparently hers, apparently theirs to live and thrive in. While Brienne may slip away on occasion, she relishes returning to Jaime and Hope each time, to capture a glimpse of the future that holds alive the past, her memories of her father holding her as she sees Jaime pulling Hope close, in the way he smiles at her the same way Brienne’s father looked at her with the same kind of adoration.

“And neither do I think I could,” she adds as she catches up to them. “For much longer anyway.”

Jaime’s frown deepens at that. “Does that mean you are…?”

“It appears our legacy is growing in size. Twice as much.”

“You are expecting twins?”

Brienne nods her head slowly. “So I was told.”

“When?” he wants to know, already stepping closer as his heart means to beat outside his chest once more.

“This afternoon,” Brienne tells him. After Morgan told her after examining her and gave way to what the Lady of Tarth already suspected, she felt the sheer urge to find her father’s spirit hiding in the crevices, to let him know that his legacy may well grow further a second time. However, then her present and future both caught up to her with fast strides and hasty skips, and Brienne must say, she is glad for it, because the way Jaime smiles at her right at this second makes her forget all of her doubts and makes her see nothing but future and the light hiding within.

She can feel his arms around her even before Jaime can pull her to him to press his lips on hers with a kind of need and joy that Brienne grew to be hungry for the same way his appetite for the life they grant each other does not die down.

“Twins! I can’t believe it,” Jaime laughs, pulling away to look at his wife, the love of his life, the woman who made life worth living – and so much more. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I… was caught up in the past for a moment,” Brienne tells him. “But now I dare to look into the future.”

“As you should, as we all should,” Jaime agrees, brushing his stump over her stomach once, already enthusiastic about watching and feeling it swell with even more life to fill his own existence with.

_“You have already had light brought into your own darkness. And so will you bring light to other peoples’ darkness, in a future not far away. There are many who bring light and who will bring light, to the Long Night yet to come, but also beyond that. And it is that time that will let you ignite another kind of flame, so that something can rise into the sky that shines like an evenstar. But that is something you will only see once you have laid your eyes upon it, which I already did.”_

The two are pulled out of their thoughts when Hope appears behind them again.

“I am getting siblings?”

“It appears so, Hope. Are you happy about that?” Jaime asks.

“Oh, I want more than two. I want very, very many of them,” Hope announces, holding up her fingers to signal the sheer number of siblings she would fancy, which are very, very many. “So we can spar and play together and have adventure after adventure after adventure!”

“That sounds like a good plan to me, wouldn’t you agree, my wife?” Jaime questions.

“That sounds like a good future to me, yes,” Brienne agrees, holding out her hand to Hope, who readily takes it, before gripping her father’s stump in the other so that she walks between the two, urging them towards adventures and futures yet to happen, yet to be born.

And so it seems that their silver lining sprang forth from Valyrian steel and will come to rest in it once they are to put their swords next to Lord Selwyn’s in the armory, but their silver lining will contain so much more as it shone and still shines the way towards a future that is lived and loved, so that they will live on in the memories of Hope and the siblings yet to come.

They turned out to be each other’s silver lining, each other’s beacons in the darkness, to lead towards a future only waiting for them to fetch and hold on to.

Their future lies in the touch of their hands the same way it lies in the touch of Hope’s fingers curling around their wrists as she pulls them towards the gardens, all the while plotting their future already, thinking out loud about what she can do with her siblings once they are finally there.

Whatever their future may hold, of that they are certain, it will hold life.

And life casts the brightest light, bringing forth past, present, and future, to unite them in the power without a shape while giving everything its shape, forging it without breaking it, making it hard by making it soft, making it strong by allowing it to be weak.

Life casts the brightest lights, the greatest shadows, and thereby gives way to the immaterial material that is at the heart of their lives, a love that gives, a love that takes, a love that lives in past, present, and future, a love that lives on.

 _Always_.


End file.
